The Supreme Court’s intervention (
Rakesh Vaishnav v Union of India 2021) in the ongoing protests and debate over the three controversial “farm laws”
1 has been met with a storm of criticism (Hegde 2021; Yamunan 2021). It has “stayed the implementation” of the three farm laws “until further orders” and set up a committee of four members “for the purpose of listening to the grievances of the farmers relating to the farm laws and the views of the Government and to make recommendations” (
Rakesh Vaishnav v Union of India 2021).
To say that the order has attracted controversy would be putting it mildly. For a start, the committee it set up—composed of four men recommended by the union government, Bhupinder Singh Mann, Pramod Kumar Joshi, Ashok Gulati, and Anil Ghanwat—had already expressed their support for the farm laws in their present form (Alvi 2021). The farmers have understandably indicated that they would not appear before the committee in any capacity, with one of the members, Bhupinder Singh Mann, having already recused himself (Siwach et al 2021).