The Supreme Court on Monday declined to give early hearing to a petition questioning the basis on which the government arrived at Rs 60,000 crore (Rs 600 billion) figure for farm debt, whose waiver has been proposed in Budget 2008-09.

"It's a Budget proposal. Sorry, it is before the Parliament. We don't want to discuss the matter, which is going to be discussed in the Parliament," a bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan said, when advocate M L Sharma, who has filed the petition, sought urgent hearing on the issue.

"No early hearing can be given. You may go to appropriate forum," the bench said and quipped that if the petitioner wants urgent hearing on a Budget proposal he should become a Member of Parliament.

The PIL sought a direction to the Finance Ministry and the Reserve Bank of India [Get Quote] to place the list of banks and the loan amount due to them. Contending that the write-off is limited to such farmers who have taken loans from the nationalised banks, the PIL sought that loan waiver scheme be extended to all those who have taken loan from private money lenders and private banks.

Further, he demanded politicians should be kept out of distribution of fund under the scheme. The advocate contended the amount that the farmers' have borrowed from the nationalised banks is not so huge. The petitioner said that according to RBI, prior to February 29, 2008, no nationalised bank had any dead/sick agricultural loan in its balance sheets. 

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