12-Jul-2019: Dispute over the construction of SYL canal
The recent Supreme Court order asking Punjab, Haryana and Centre to sort out SYL issue amicably, has brought to centre stage the contentious issue of sharing of waters between the two states.
The creation of Haryana from the old (undivided) Punjab in 1966 threw up the problem of giving Haryana its share of river waters. Punjab was opposed to sharing waters of the Ravi and Beas with Haryana, citing riparian principles, and arguing that it had no water to spare.
However, Centre, in 1976, issued a notification allocating to Haryana 3.5 million acre feet (MAF) out of undivided Punjab’s 7.2 MAF.
The Eradi Tribunal headed by Supreme Court Judge V Balakrishna Eradi was set up to reassess availability and sharing of water. The Tribunal, in 1987, recommended an increase in the shares of Punjab and Haryana to 5 MAF and 3.83 MAF, respectively.
To enable Haryana to use its share of the waters of the Sutlej and its tributary Beas, a canal linking the Sutlej with the Yamuna, cutting across the state, was planned. A tripartite agreement was also negotiated between Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan in this regard.
However, following the protests in Punjab, the Punjab Assembly passed The Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004, terminating its water-sharing agreements, and thus jeopardizing the construction of SYL in Punjab.
Haryana has been staking claim on Ravi-Beas waters through SYL canal on the plea that providing water for irrigation was a tough task for the state. In southern parts, where the underground water had depleted up to 1700 feet, there was a problem of drinking water. Haryana has been invoking its contribution to the central food bowl and lamenting that justice had been denied to the state by not providing it its rightful share in the water as assessed by a tribunal.
8-Jul-2019: Uniform Civil Code issue to be placed before 22nd Law Commission
The issue of framing a Uniform Civil Code will be placed for consideration before the 22nd Law Commission once it is constituted.
A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice C Hari Shankar was told that on receiving a reference from the government, the issue was considered by the 21st Law Commission and it sought the views of various stakeholders and met several religious groups.
Central government standing counsel Ajay Digpaul, representing the Law Commission, further said that as per instructions to him, a consultation paper on Reform of Family Law was released by the 21st Law Commission on the subject and is available on its website.
The term of 21st Law Commission ended in August last year and the 22nd Law Commission is yet to be constituted. Once it is set up, the project of 'Uniform Civil Code' will be placed before it for consideration.
A Uniform Civil Code aims to replace personal laws based on the scriptures and customs of various religious communities, with a common set of rules governing every citizen of the country.
The plea has said that Goa has a common civil code since 1965, which is applicable to all of its residents, and it is the only state to have it as of now.
The petition has sought directions to the Centre "to constitute a judicial commission or a high-level expert committee to draft the Uniform Civil Code in the spirit of Article 44 of the Constitution within three months, while considering the best practices of all religions and sects, civil laws of developed countries and international conventions".
2-May-2019: PepsiCo vs potato farmers
PepsiCo India has, on May 2, 2019, agreed to withdraw its lawsuit against farmers in Gujarat whom it had accused of infringing its patent. Farmers’ rights activists have called it a major victory only if it’s unconditional.
They say PepsiCo should have apologised to farmers for harassing them and paid them a compensation. Government should put into place clear mechanisms to avoid a repetition of this episode in future. For this, all Certificates of Registration should explicitly state that such a Certificate and any rights associated with it are conditional to certain other sections of Protection of Plant Varieties & Farmers Rights (PPV&FR) Act 2001.
The Gujarat government must not opt for an out-of-court settlement with PepsiCo as the Protection of Plant Varieties & Farmers Rights (PPV&FR) Act 2001 lets farmers cultivate any variety they like to, including the patented variety of potatoes.
The food and beverage multinational recently sued farmers in Gujarat for cultivating their proprietary FC5 variety of potatoes that are used to make Lay’s chips. This variety is designed to have less moisture and sugar content than other spuds.
Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA), a farmers’ rights advocacy platform, opposed the state’s attempt to settle the matter saying the Act is applicable irrespective of the source of seed, type of seed, type of registrant, type of crop, and to who and how the harvest was sold.
PepsiCo had proposed to settle in the last court hearing on April 26. The corporate giant’s offer had two terms. One, farmers should stop growing the registered potato variety and surrender their existing stocks. And if they wished to continue, they must enter PepsiCo’s collaborative farming programme where they buy seeds from the company and sell the produce back to it.
PepsiCo should withdraw the cases unconditionally, explicitly acknowledging that its rights under the law are indeed subject to farmers’ rights. It is PepsiCo that should be asked to sign an undertaking that this will not happen to our farmers again. It should apologise to the defendant-farmers and compensate them adequately for trespassing their farms, breaching their privacy, video-recording without farmer’s knowledge, intimidation, unnecessary expenses and harassment they have been subjected to.
The All India Farmers’ Forum (AIFF) had also earlier demanded that PepsiCo immediately withdraw its lawsuits and apologise to the Indian peasants.
25-Apr-2019: Lawsuits against potato farmers
Leading rights groups and individuals working for farmers’ rights in the country have sought Central government’s intervention to protect at least nine farmers in Gujarat against whom PepsiCo India, the Indian subsidiary of the US food and beverage giant, has slapped lawsuits for allegedly growing and selling potato variety exclusively registered with the company for manufacturing chips of the Lay’s brand.
In a letter to the chairperson and registrar of Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights (PPV&FR) Authority, which is under the central government’s Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer’s Welfare, the 192 signatories have sought the court cases against the farmers be withdrawn. They have also asked the government to issue a notification barring any private firm to trespass into a farmer’s field without duly informing the local district agriculture office and farmer’s prior informed consent.
On a suit filed by PepsiCo India Holdings Pvt Ltd, the Ahmedabad city civil court earlier this month had barred four farmers of Sabarkantha district — Bipin Patel, Chhabil Patel, Vinod Patel and Haribhai Patel — from growing and selling potatoes till April 26. PepsiCo had complained to the court that the farmers were “illegally” growing and selling a potato variety —- FL-2027 — exclusively registered with the company. On the company’s plea, the court had appointed an advocate as the court commissioner to conduct an inquiry into the dispute and file a report.
In 2018, the same company had slapped civil suits against five farmers — Prabhudas Patel, Bharat Patel, Jeetu Patel, Vinod Patel and Jigarkumar Patel — all from Aravalli district alleging that these farmers have been “illegally” growing the trademark potato variety ‘FL-2027’ (commercial name FC-5). This case is being heard in the Aravalli district court in Modasa.
With the company reportedly telling the court that it is the registered breeder of the FL-2027 variety of potatoes under the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights (PPV&FR) Act, 2001, Mahajan said that the case does not stand as per Section 39 of the said Act.
India had designed a sui-generis law Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights (PPV&FR) Act, 2001, in compliance with the WTO’s TRIPS Agreements. Under Section 39 of this Act, farmers are exempted from such trademarks.
The section itself says, “a farmer shall be deemed to be entitled to save, use, sow, resow, exchange, share or sell his farm produce, including seed of a variety protected under this Act, in the same manner as he was entitled before the coming into the force of this Act, provided that the farmer shall not be entitled to sell branded seed of a variety protected under this Act.
In the letter to PPV&FR Authority, the signatories have demanded that the government must make a public statement and also tell the courts, explaining the farmers’ rights as enshrined in the Act. Farmers and Bharatiya Kisan Sangh have also given representations to the state government, highlighting their plight. But there has been no response from them yet.