SC to hear on Jul 22 Haryana govt's plea against removal of barricades at Shambhu border

New Delhi: The Supreme Court will on July 22 hear the Haryana government's plea challenging a high court order giving it a week to remove barricades at the Shambhu border near Ambala where farmers have been camping since February 13.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan on Tuesday agreed to list the matter for next Monday after senior additional advocate general Lokesh Sinhal, appearing for the state government, said the issue requires urgent consideration.

The appeal filed through advocate Akshay Amritanshu against the July 10 order of the high court said it is limited to the impugned direction that the Haryana should open the Shambhu border within a week on an experimental basis so the general public is not inconvenienced.

The Haryana government had set up the barricades on the Ambala-New Delhi national highway after the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha announced that farmers would march to Delhi in support of various demands, including a legal guarantee of minimum support price (MSP) for crops.

"It is humbly submitted that though the petitioner is most concerned about any inconvenience of any kind caused to general public, the present SLP has been filed on an urgent basis...," the plea said.

The state government said the high court while dealing with the issue did not pass any orders on its affidavit where it had specifically pleaded that the barricading can only be removed if the farmers shift their dharna from the National Highway.

It said the affidavit before the high court spoke of the likelihood of tension, annoyance, obstruction, sabotage of public or private property, injury to persons lawfully employed and risk to damage to human life and property, disturbance of public peace and public order within Haryana/Punjab by the agitators.

"Despite the categorical submission regarding law and order issue that may arise, the threat to life and property and despite a plea to shift the agitators out of the National Highway, the high court has on an 'experimental basis' directed for opening of the Shambhu Border without passing any directions against the agitators," it said.

The Haryana government said law and order is a state subject under the Constitution and it is entirely the state's responsibility to assess ground realities, threat perception, likelihood of breach of peace and violation of law. It pointed out that the high court order records that 400-500 trolleys and 50-60 other vehicles with a gathering of around 500 agitators are still at site at Shambhu Border but no directions have been passed to these "illegally agitating groups" to vacate the highway, to stop causing inconvenience and to stop creating law and order issues.

On July 12, while hearing a related matter, the top court asked the Haryana government to remove the barricades and questioned its authority to block the highway.

"How can a state block a highway? It has a duty to regulate traffic. We are saying open it but regulate," the bench had said on June 12 after the counsel informed the bench about the state's intention of filing an appeal in the apex court.

The top court had made the observations while hearing a plea of the Haryana government challenging a March 7 Punjab and Haryana High Court decision to set up a committee headed by a former high court judge to probe the death of a farmer during a clash between the protesting farmers and Haryana security personnel in February.

The incident occurred when some protesting farmers were trying to head towards the barricades erected at the border and were stopped by the security personnel from marching to Delhi.