SC To Hear Contempt Plea Over Non-Compliance of Order on Dallewal Tomorrow

New Delhi: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear Monday a contempt petition against the Punjab chief secretary and director general of police for non-compliance of an order directing medical aid to farmer leader Jagjit Singh Dallewal, who is on an indefinite hunger strike.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh is scheduled to hear the matter.

The top court had earlier pulled up the Punjab government and said its officials and some farmer leaders were making irresponsible statements in the media over attempts to break Dallewal's indefinite fast.

The court had come down heavily on the Punjab government for not moving Dallewal to a hospital even as it doubted the intention of the agitating farmers for resisting availability of medical aid to their septuagenarian leader.

On December 20, the apex court put the onus on Punjab government officials and doctors to decide on his hospitalisation.

The court said Dallewal, 70, could be moved to the makeshift hospital set up within 700 metres of the protest site at Khanauri border point between Punjab and Haryana.

Dallewal has been on an indefinite fast at the Khanauri protest site since November 26 to press the Centre to accept the farmers' demands, including a legal guarantee of minimum support price for crops. 

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