Most suicides by farmers not true: Telangana

Hyderabad: Warning that it will penalise both petitioners and respondents if they were found to have furnished false information with regard to farmer suicides, the Hyderabad High Court on Monday directed the TS government to furnish the reason for the rejection of compensation for 188 cases of farmer suicides.

A division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Dilip B. Bhosale and Justice P. Naveen Rao was dealing with a batch of petitions filed separately by Vyavasaya Jana Chaitanaya Samiti, Pakala Srihari Rao, Professor M. Kodandaram and others, challenging the failure of the governments of both TS and AP in curbing farmer suicides.

Sharath Kumar, special counsel for TS, submitted that the petitioners submitted a list of 345 incidents of suicides and after inquiry, officials found that 188 were not farm-related suicides.

He said that reports in 43 cases were yet to be received. The three-man committees at the district level have identified 70 cases eligible for ex-gratia and payment was made so far in 60 cases, Mr Kumar said.