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The Apex Court of the country on Thursday issued a number of directions to the state governments while hearing the Suo Moto petition on the issues faced by migrant workers in the country.
Sanjay Parikh was pleading from the petitioner side in the matter of Medha Patkar v Union of India and Kapil Sibal, Colin Gonsalves, Indira Jaising and P. Chidambaram were appearing in the Suo Moto Petition for Migrant Labourers. Lawyers for states viz, Arunachal Pradesh, Home Secretary U.P, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal were also present.
The Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted that governments both at centre and states are working to send migrants home and in furtherance of the same it had started Shramik special trains. He said that in 27 days, 50 lakh migrants were sent to their homes via trains. With the cooperation of states many labourers have been sent via buses and it amounts to another 40 lakhs. He further said that governments will not stop their efforts until each and every migrant worker reaches home.
Mr. Sibal contended that under Disaster Management Act, there is a provision for a national plan to be prepared by National executive committee to deal with the situation. Provision of minimum standards of relief which includes shelter, food, drinking water, medical cover and sanitation is under the same Act but till date minimum standards have not been set up. He said that there is no coordination between the national, state and district plans. There is not even the mention of a centre plan in the state’s affidavit. There are 4.5 crore migrant workers in India, if it took 27 days to return just 91 lakhs to their homes, then for the rest to return it would take 3 months. When can we expect our migrant workers to reach their respective homes? He further stated that nobody knows what food is given to them and pulses is not the answer as they can’t cook it.
Indira Jaising submitted that there is a schedule already for VandeBharat trains but not for the trains which will return migrant workers to their homes.
Advocate Rahul Chitnis representing Maharashtra, mentioned the expenses incurred on the migrant workers. The court refuted this argument by saying that we are not interested in expenses incurred by the governments, we have to help migrants in any case. We want to know how many people are waiting, are they getting food and when would they be sent to their respective homes.
The court recognised the work of states but said that there are many lapses in the process of registration, transportation, provision of food and shelter, etc. The bench said that they are concerned about the miseries and difficulties faced by migrant workers.
The Bench comprising of Justice Ashok Bhushan, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul & Justice M.R. Shah even issued some directions to the states. Some of them are as:
Bench ordered the states to file their reports.
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