The Supreme Court sought the response of the Centre on a PIL challenging the constitutional validity of newly enacted three farm laws on grounds including that Parliament lacked power to make legislations on the subject.

The plea also raised questions over the validity of “the Constitution (3rd Amendment Act) of 1954” which allegedly empowered the Centre to frame the controversial laws on agriculture.

A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde, while issuing notice to the Ministry of Law and Justice on the PIL of lawyer M L Sharma, said that it would hear on January 11 all the pleas challenging the new farm laws as also the ones raising issues related to the ongoing Farmers’ protests at Delhi borders. In a hearing conducted through video conferencing, the bench, also comprising Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian, took note of the petition which also contended that the subject ‘agriculture’ has wrongly been put in the concurrent list in the Constitution by parliament in 1954.

The bench also allowed the lawyer to amend his PIL in which he has also sought quashing of the three laws. Earlier on November 19, the bench had restored the PIL of Sharma which was dismissed on October 12 and he was asked to approach the High Court instead.

The top court has already decided to hear pleas of RJD lawmaker from Rajya Sabha, Manoj Jha, and DMK Rajya Sabha MP from Tamil Nadu, Tiruchi Siva, and one by Rakesh Vaishnav of Chhattisgarh Kisan Congress against the three laws: Farmers’ (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020; Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020 and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act 2020.