"We will have it on Monday," a bench comprising Chief Justice H L Dattu and Justice Arun Mishra said, when senior advocate Indira Jaisingh, appearing for farmers' organisations sought urgent hearing of the petition.
The farmers' organisations, in their plea filed yesterday, challenged the re-promulgated land ordinance, terming it as "unconstitutional" and ultra vires of the Constitution and as a "colourful exercise of power" by the executive usurping law-making powers of the legislature.
The farmers' bodies said the government's action in promulgating successive ordinances bypassing the legislative process of Parliament was not only "arbitrary and violative" of Article 14 but also a "fraud on the Constitution" itself.
They said government's action in re-promulgating the ordinance was "malafide" and thus open to challenge.
More From This Section
The government "deliberately" did not move the 2015 bill for discussion in the Rajya Sabha after its passage in the Lok Sabha between March 10 and 20 "due to lack of its numbers, political will or consensus," the petition has said in which Ministries of Law and Justice, Parliamentary Affairs, Home Affairs, Rural Development and Cabinet Secretariat have been made parties.
The petitioners also said the "deliberate proroguing" of the Rajya Sabha on March 28, "whilst it was in Budget session only for the oblique and malafide purpose of re-promulgating the impugned Ordinance goes against the very spirit and raison de'etre underlying Article 123 of the Constitution".