Chief Justice of India S.A. Bobde on Tuesday said that a person expressing views on an issue does not disqualify him from being selected for a committee on that matter, at a time the Supreme Court’s choices for a committee to broker peace between protesting farmers and the government have come in for criticism.
CJI Bobde did not refer to a specific panel, neither was he hearing a case related to the farm protests, but his comments were seen in the light of the anger at the Supreme Court nominating people who have supported the government’s contentious agriculture laws to the committee for talks.
“There is some confusion in understanding the law. One person may have an opinion before being a part of the committee but his opinion can change. There is no way that such a member cannot be part of a committee,” Justice Bobde remarked during the hearing of cases related to cheque bounce offences.
The CJI made it clear that the observations were general in nature and not confined to the matter before the court on Tuesday. “We are taking of a general misunderstanding. Committee members are not judges. They can always change their views,” Justice Bobde said.
The committee on the farm laws, set up on January 12, has Bhupinder Singh Mann, national president of the Bharatiya Kisan Union and the All India Kisan Coordination Committee; Parmod Kumar Joshi, agricultural economist and director for South Asia, International Food Policy Research Institute; Ashok Gulati, agricultural economist and former chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices; and Anil Ghanwat, president of the Shetkari Sanghatana. In a letter attributed to him and which he has not dissociated himself from, Mann has purportedly recused himself from the panel, citing his commitment to Punjab and farmers.