Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana high court on Tuesday (July 10) directed the Haryana government to remove police barricades at the Shambhu border within a week.
The state government – which is currently under the rule of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – closed its border with Punjab at Shambhu in February this year to restrict the farmers’ march towards Delhi.
This happened after farmers renewed their agitation on the lines of the historic 2020 farm protests to pressure the BJP-led Union government over their key demand to legalise minimum support prices (MSPs) for crops.
While the farmers’ strength at the Shambhu border dwindled over the last few months, farmer bodies resolved not to leave the border until they were allowed to march to Delhi.
In its latest order, a division bench of Justices G.S. Sandhawalia and Vikas Bahl cited inconvenience to the public as motivating its direction to the Haryana government to open the Shambhu border.
It could, however, potentially revive the farmers’ strength at the border, especially after the return of the BJP-led NDA government at the centre following the recent general election.
Farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher, general secretary of the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee, one of the farmers’ fronts leading the protest at the Shambhu border, told the media that they have summoned a joint meeting of farmers’ bodies on July 16 to take overall stock of the court order as well as their future strategy.
Meanwhile, the Samyukta Kisan Morcha, which played a key role in the 2020 farm protest, is planning to relaunch its agitation against the unfulfilled promises of the NDA government.
Setback to Haryana, but court grants some leverage too
The latest order is seen as a setback to the Haryana government, which had taken all possible measures, including the use of excessive force, to restrict farmers from marching towards Delhi.
While the Haryana government argued that all its steps were taken to maintain law and order, it ended up blocking the main highway that is a lifeline for Punjab and Haryana and which further leads to Jammu and Kashmir.
The high court in its order stated that the diversion at the highway as result of the Shambhu border closure has been causing great inconvenience to the general public.
“In such circumstance[s], we are of the considered opinion that it would be in the interest of the general public that the state of Haryana now does not continue to block the highways for all times to come,” the court stated.
But at the same time, the bench gave leverage to the Haryana government to take effective steps to enforce law and order against protestors if they do not remain within the limits set down by the state.
The bench also directed that all farmers’ unions that have taken part in the agitation also maintain law and order.
Similarly, the state of Punjab shall also ensure that the demonstrators gathered in its territory are also duly controlled as and when the situation requires, the court added.
Protestor’s death
The court also considered the forensic report filed with respect to the death of Shubhkaran Singh, a protesting farmer who died during a protest on February 21.
It was alleged that Singh lost his life after being hit by a bullet fired by the Haryana police.
As per the forensic report, the pellets in question were found to have been fired through a shotgun and to correspond to size ‘1’ pellets of shotgun cartridges.
Pieces of skin and hair strands have been examined chemically for the presence of firing discharge residues, which were duly detected.
The bench noted that the said report thus settled some controversy regarding the manner in which the deceased met his end.
“We thus nominate Satish Balan, commissioner of police, Jhajjar to investigate into the said FIR keeping in view the forensic report observations,” it added.
The court order quoted another report which clarified that Shubhkaran was standing within the revenue estate of the Data Singh Wala village in Jind district when he was hit by the said bullets and that state of Haryana would thus have jurisdiction to investigate the cause of his death.
