MR. CM BEFORE MEETING THE PRESIDENT, PEOPLE OF PUNJAB WANTS TO KNOW

People of Punjab and the farmers are entitled to know from the Chief Minister the current Status of the three Farm Bills handed over to the Governor of Punjab on October 22 to seek his assent before you proceed to make another futile attempt to meet The President of India Shri Ram Nath Kovind carrying the same ambiguous documents.

Though it seems very unlikely that the President of India would oblige the Punjab delegation led by Capt. Amarinder Singh gave his assent to the three half-baked Farm Bills, passed by Punjab Vidhan Sabha in contravention with the central laws. The President would never take unconstitutional U-turn to undo his earlier assent given to the Farm Bills passed by both the houses of the Parliament and notified as Acts, in the Gazette of India.

Such a bizarre and tangled grotesque,   involving incongruous legal duality of nuance has never happened in the parliamentary history of law making in free India where the President has given contradictory assent to any legislation, disobeying the act of the Parliament.  If speculatively, the President ventures to do so; this would mean withdrawal of his assent already granted to the Bills that have become operational as Acts of Parliament. This kind of capricious development would create a unique constitutional crisis in the country, which has no precedent in India since January 26, 1950.

MUST KNOW THE LAW

Capt. Amarinder Singh Chief Minister of Punjab and his legal team should have made comprehensive study of the powers of the President and the procedures available in the constitutional framework to annul an Act of the Parliament. When there is no such power with the President to repeal an act of the Parliament and this power solely rests with the Parliament itself as per the constitution; then why unnecessarily bother the President and befool the public at large, just to score brownie points.

There is also no use creating speculative hype and projections in the media regarding the November 4 meeting scheduled with the President of India to seek his assent to the Bills passed by the Punjab legislature. It sounds profoundly unwise on part of the Chief Minister to seek appointment with the President of India, without first determining   the status of the Farms Bills, handed over to the Governor of Punjab by the Chief Minister.

DON’T INDULE IN SUPERFLOUS EXERCISES

I would urge Capt. Amarinder Singh not to indulge in such self-deceptive and superfluous exercises which are ordained to expire in vainness, without yielding any tangible result for the farmers of Punjab. 

My unsolicited suggestion to the Government of Punjab in the matter would be to hire immediately the top constitutional Jurists and hand over the entire matter to them for their advice and perusal; rather than acting with indecent haste in the air of despondency with no perceptible result in sight. My second suggestion to the Chief Minister; though bit sour but subtle in nature, would be to keep the expertise services of the office of the Advocate General of Punjab in a state of temporary disuse, for the benefit of the farmers and the larger interests of Punjab.

I wonder why the Chief Minister, Punjab is reluctant to seek a structural meeting with the Prime Minister to discuss this most sensitive farm issues threadbare;  as the solution to this vexed problem only  lies  with the Parliament .

The overdoing or Political hara-kiri in this matter would mean committing a ceremonial suicide and the repeat of disingenuous cliché by The Chief Minister Capt. Amarinder Singh would not salvage Punjab from its unfathomably deepening crisis with every passing day.

Thank you, Mr. Chief Minister; for treating my Punjab as a ‘Waste land’ and betraying its enterprising people through Machiavellian manipulations, all through the time, when you were at the helms of the affairs of the State of Punjab and you very selectively preferred a holidaying sojourn in a prolonged slumber, away from the ‘maddening crowds’  when your services were most needed  during the critical window period, at a time when Punjab and its farmers could have been salvaged, when the issue deserved holistic and much coordinated aggressive approach, you very sadly did not deem it appropriate to heed to the calls of dying Punjab.