New Delhi, March 22: The Supreme Court on Monday observed that it cannot compel states to file their replies on the issue of manual scavenging, and said it will proceed with the hearing on the plea related to it.
A bench of Chief Justice SA Bobde and Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian listed the matter for further hearing in the third week of August.
During the brief hearing, advocate Ashima Mandla, appearing for a NGO ‘Criminal Justice Society of India’ headed by senior advocate KTS Tulsi, said that one manual scavenger dies every five days and the issue has also come up in the Rajya Sabha. Mandla said in February 2019, notice was issued in the matter and there are over 40 respondents but only 13 have so far filed their counter affidavit. The bench observed, “we can’t compel people to file counter affidavit. We will proceed and draw adverse inference against them”.
On February 8, 2019, the top court had asked the chief secretaries of all states and Union Territories (UTs) to place a record status report on the number of manual scavengers employed directly or indirectly since 1993 when the law prohibiting the practice was enacted. It had observed that the matter was “serious” and asked all the states and the UTs to file their reply within four weeks.
The plea, filed by a NGO through advocate Fuzail Ahmad Ayyubi has sought the number of manual scavengers who have died since 1993. It has also sought a direction to all the states, UTs and the Indian Railways to investigate the death of manual scavengers and initiate criminal proceedings under IPC Section 304 (punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder) against authorities, agencies, contractors or any other official, who have directly or indirectly employed manual scavengers. (PTI)
