SC Suggests no MSP for farmers burning stubble

The Supreme Court suggested excluding farmers burning their stubble from the purview of the minimum support price (MSP) to discourage them from doing so.

“Why should any purchase be made under the minimum support price (MSP) system from people violating orders and lighting fires, regardless of how this affects the people, the children? The stick must follow the carrot. Why should people who, despite all observations of the court, despite counseling, continue violating the law be allowed to benefit monetarily?

People who have been identified as having lit fires should not be allowed to sell their products under this system. There should be something that pinches. It’s not about one state or the other, or the Union. Let’s not get politics into this,” the Bench of Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia said.

Justice Dhulia suggested, it’s a suggestion. The MSP policy cannot be done away with. It’s a sensitive issue. You can only pick persons, but you cannot do it as a policy perhaps.

Justice Dhulia, however, said: “The farmer must have some reasons for burning the stubble…”