A bench of justices Madan B Lokur and S A Bobde issued notice to Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Odisha and Jharkhand governments.
The court passed the order on a plea which sought adequate and timely compensation for crop loss and input subsidy for the next crop to the farmers affected by drought and subsidised cattle fodder for animals.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for Swaraj Abhiyan, said National Food Security Act (NFSA) 2013 places obligation on the state to provide 5 kg of food grains to each person in the family per month.
"Unfortunately, most states have not yet implemented this. Except Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, the states have stuck to the previous Public Distribution System schemes that fall short of the NFSA obligations.
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Bhushan submitted that no government has provided any compensation or relief to the farmers for crop loss during this drought.
"They (government) cannot, for the existing system of crop loss is outdated, slow, arbitrary and full of corruption," he said.
He further stated that "besides, the rising price of daal (pulses) has made it unaffordable for the poor and there is a need to provide at least 2 kg of daal per family per month and egg for school going children through the Mid-Day Meal scheme and for children below 6-years through Integrated Child Development Services."
The petition submitted that the drought has led to severe decline in farm employment available to the rural poor.
If we compare the drought affected states, the employment generation is down from 96 crore person days in 2013-14 to 67 crore person days in 2014-15 to just 48 crore in 2015-16 so far, it added.