Gehlot instructs commercial banks to stop auction process of farmers' land for defaulting on loans

Rajasthan’s governor Kalraj Mishra has been withholding forwarding of various Bills related to farmers and their rights to the President of India for over a year now, much to the chagrin of the Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government in the state.

“I do not know under what pressure the governor is sitting on the Bills and has not sent them to the President for his assent,” Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said on Friday.

Gehlot’s reaction came when commercial banks in the state started the process of auctioning farmland belonging to farmers who have failed to repay their loans.

Commercial banks in eastern Rajasthan have initiated the process of auctioning off land belonging to 5600 farmers who were listed as defaulters by them. The Gehlot government had waived off loans worth Rs 14,000 crore taken by farmers from various cooperative banks, but the commercial banks which could not recover their loans have begun the process of auctioning the land.

On hearing about the same and agitation led by the BKU leader Rakesh Tikait, Gehlot swung into auction and issued instructions to bank officials to stop the auction process.

“Due to non-payment of loans of farmers taken from commercial banks that are controlled by the Reserve Bank of India in the state, land attachment and auction action is being taken under the Rajasthan Agricultural Credit Operation (Removal of Difficulties) Act, 1974. State government officials have been instructed to stop this,” he said in a statement.

Gehlot also said that the state government has waived off the loans of cooperative banks, and urged the Centre to waive off the loans of farmers by doing one-time settlements with commercial banks. The state government is ready to bear its share in this also, he said.

“Our government had passed a Bill in the assembly to ban land auction of farmers having agricultural land up to five acres, but due to lack of permission of the governor, it has not become a law yet. I am sad that due to non-compliance of this law, the said situation has come,” he noted.

Gehlot said the Rajasthan Vidhan Sabha on October 31, 2020 passed a Bill against the attachment of such land and it also passed three Bills that bypassed the Central government’s farm laws. But these Bills could not become laws as the governor never sent the Bills to the President with his recommendations for the President’s assent.

Under such circumstances, the banks were acting on the basis of the laws that existed before October 2020.

The governor of not only Rajasthan but also of Punjab withheld the Bills passed by the state legislatures of both states related to farmers’ welfare. But since the Centre’s farm laws now stand repealed, the respective governors are sitting on the Bills passed by the state legislatures.

The Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) (Rajasthan Amendment) Bill, 2020; The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services (Rajasthan Amendment) Bill, 2020; and The Essential Commodities (Special Provisions and Rajasthan Amendment) Bill, 2020 were passed by the state Assembly in October 2020. The Bill relating to the auctioning of land up to five acres was also passed in 2020. But the Bills could not become laws as they could not get the President’s assent.

Article 254(2) of the Constitution allows a state to make changes to Central legislation on a subject on the concurrent list only if it gets Presidential assent.

In one case, a commercial bank auctioned off land belonging to a scheduled tribe farmer Kajor Meena, who had taken a loan of Rs 3.87 lakh for fixing a tubewell in his farm. The loan and interest amount snowballed to Rs 7 lakh in October 2021 and following harassment by bank officials, the farmer committed suicide.

On January 18, bank officials auctioned off the dead farmer’s land for a mere Rs 46 lakh while the government rate of the land was Rs 75 lakh and the market price was Rs 1 crore.

It is learnt that the governor is getting the two Bills examined by legal experts following the repeal of the farm laws by Parliament.

The Bills also provided for Minimum Sales Prices (MSP) for contract farming for seven crops. Like Punjab, they provide for three to seven years of imprisonment for harassment of farmers.