The prime minister said he appreciated the court’s sentiment behind its order on distribution of food grain to the poor, but made it clear that it was not a practical idea.
Did the Supreme Court overstep its jurisdiction while ordering free distribution of food grain among the poor?
The political class has not cried ‘judicial activism’ yet, but prime minister Manmohan Singh has subtly registered his disagreement with the court’s order.
“The Supreme Court should not get into the realm of policy formulation,” said Singh on Monday.
He said he appreciated the court’s sentiment behind its order on distribution of food grain to the poor, but made it clear that it was not a practical idea.
“How can food grain be distributed free to an estimated 37% of the population which lives below the poverty line?” the prime minister asked during an interaction with editors at his official residence.
The apex court had ticked off agriculture minister Sharad Pawar recently for stating that the court’s order was “impossible to implement”. The prime minister appeared to agree with Pawar’s position.
“I do recognise that food should be available to the people below poverty line at concessional prices. We have not allowed any increase in the issue price of food grain to people below poverty line since 2004,” he said. Making food available free would destroy the incentive for farmers to produce more. And if there was no food available, there would be nothing to distribute, he added.
Former speaker of the Lok Sabha Somnath Chatterjee was more forthright in his opinion on the court’s order when he said a few days ago that it had “exceeded all limits of jurisdiction”.
“This is just the type of activism which creates problems for everybody. I wish the court had given some thought on how the order can be implemented,” he had said.
The Congress, meanwhile, has thrown its weight behind Singh on the issue. However, it has maintained that “there is nothing confrontational about it”.
“The prime minister’s observation that courts should stay away from the policy-making domain of the executive is an argument made in the courts regularly by the governments regularly,” said party spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi.
He maintained that there was no court-government conflict as the government was also doing the right thing. “The policy matrix of the government takes all aspect into consideration, and there is nothing like allowing the food grain to rot,” he added.
He said the media should not pre-judge the issue and wait for the court’s verdict on the submission by the government.
— With agency inputs
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