Government's claim of a "considerable" drop in farmers' suicides in the country did not impress the Supreme Court which on Friday said there should be no such cases at all.
The apex court also sought the government's response on revisiting its eight-year-old policy on farmers.
"Decrease in number (of suicides) is not enough, there should be no case of farmer suicide in the country," Social Justice Bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and U U Lalit said.
When Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand told the court that there was a "considerable decline in unfortunate incidents" of farmers' suicides, the bench said such incidents should not happen at all.
The court further indicated that the suicides may be linked to certain inherent deficiencies in the National Policy for Farmers, 2007, which may be revisited.
It also questioned the holding of yearly meetings of the committee, headed by renowned agricultural scientist M S Swaminathanl, to discuss the problems faced by farmers and said such brain-storming sessions should be held more frequently.
The bench, which was hearing a PIL seeking government to take steps to prevent farmer suicides, asked the Centre to file an affidavit within six weeks clearing its stand on revisiting the policy.
"May be because of the policy, the farmers are committing suicide. You (Centre) file an affidavit within six weeks stating whether it is necessary to revisit the policy which is eight years old," it said.
In March this year, the ministry of agriculture had filed an affidavit stating that the number of suicide deaths of farmers have declined since 2009 and there were factors other than agrarian which led them to take their lives.
The government had said the farmers' suicide cases were not as alarming as made out in the PIL and claimed that suicides in the country were not due to agrarian reasons only.
It had said that as per National Crime Records Bureau, the causes of suicides included family problems, illness, drug addiction, unemployment, dowry dispute and other reasons.
Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh's recent statement that love affairs, barrenness and impotency were also among the causes of farmers' suicides had triggered a storm, with Opposition parties accusing the government of being insensitive.
Singh's written reply in the Rajya Sabha on the issue was virtually identical to the affidavit submitted by his ministry in the apex court.
The affidavit had said that out of a total of over one lakh suicides in the country in 2013, cases of farmer suicide were recorded at 8.7 per cent.
"Suicides are essentially a manifestation of an action taken in a specific state of mind and are not confined to any particular strata of society. Economic reasons may not be the sole or major cause leading to suicide.
"The data relating to suicide by persons self-employed in farming/agriculture from 1993-2012, as maintained by NCRB, ministry of home affairs, indicates a decreasing trend from 2009 onwards. The number of suicides by persons self-employed in farming/ agriculture in 2009 were 17,368 which has come down to 11,772 in 2013.
"It is further submitted that according to NCRB as against total population of 122 crore (estimated) during 2013, the total number of suicides in the country was 1,34,799, out of which suicides under the category of self-employed (farming/agriculture) were 11,772 which is 8.73 per cent of the total suicides," the ministry said in its affidavit.
