New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday, October 21, said farmers protesting at Delhi borders against the three farms laws have the right to agitate but “they cannot block roads indefinitely.”A bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul said it was not against the right to protest even when the legal challenge is pending but ultimately some solution has to be found.The bench was referring to observations by another Supreme Court bench, of Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and C.T. Ravikumar, which had controversially questioned if farmers’ bodies had the right to protest if the laws they were protesting against had been legally challenged.The apex court was hearing a public interest litigation by a Noida resident who complained of alleged delays caused in her daily commute due to the protest of the farmers that occupies a section of the roadways connecting Uttar Pradesh to Delhi.Farmers have been camping at Delhi borders for close to a year to demand that the three laws be rolled back. Farmers have repeatedly insisted that it is police barricades that are causing the “blockade” and that they themselves have streamlined the protest site enough to allow traffic to pass smoothly.Earlier, the bench had issued notice to 43 farmers organisations in the petition. Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, who was representing some of the organisations held that the roads are blocked “thanks to the police” and that farmers should be allowed into the Ramlila Maidan to protest in such a scenario, reported LiveLaw.However, when the bench was about to record in the order Dave’s submission on the security arrangement being the cause of problem, Dave withdrew it.“Farmers have right to protest but they cannot keep roads blocked indefinitely. You may have a right to agitate in any manner but roads should not be blocked like this. People have right to go on roads but it cannot be blocked,” the bench also comprising Justice M.M. Sundresh said.The top court asked the farmer unions, who have been arraigned as parties in the case, to respond within three weeks on the issue and posted the matter for hearing on December 7.At an earlier hearing of the case, the top court had said, “Highways cannot be blocked perpetually.”Soon afterwards, hearing a petition by a farmers’ body seeking directions to the authorities to allow it to stage a satyagraha at Jantar Mantar, the bench of Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and C.T. Ravikumar said, “You have strangulated the entire city and now you want to come within the city and start protest again here”.The bench, controversially, also said, “Once you have approached the court, let the law take its own course… But, instead, you continue with the protests and block the national highways…”Retired judge of the Supreme Court, Justice Madan B. Lokur had reacted sharply to this observation in his interview to The Wire.Justice S.K. Kaul who is heading the bench hearing the Noida resident’s plea had also headed the Supreme Court bench which had, in October 2020, delivered the order that public places cannot be occupied indefinitely, in a petition that sought the Shaheen Bagh protest in New Delhi against the Citizenship Amendment Act be moved to a designated location.(With PTI inputs)