The Bombay supreme court on Tuesday said the migrants’ issue wasn’t handled properly in West Bengal amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and therefore the government there at one point of your time even refused to allow labourers from other parts of the country to return to their homes.
A division bench of judge Dipankar Datta and Justice Anuja Prabhudessai made the observation while hearing a petition filed by Centre of Indian Trade Unions, a Mumbai-based union body, raising concerns over the plight of migrant workers stranded in Maharashtra within the wake of the coronavirus-induced lockdown.
According to the petitioner, the method laid down by the Maharashtra government wherein migrant workers need to register themselves to pass by ‘Shramik Special’ trains to their native states was cumbersome and will be simplified. The government last month told the court that presently there are not any demands for ‘Shramik Special’ trains.
Senior counsel Gayatri Singh, appearing for the petitioner, on Tuesday told the court that the governments submission that there are not any stranded migrants who desire to travel back to their native states was “incorrect”.
“The petitioner possesses in-tuned with several such migrant labourers and has learnt that there are some 56,000 labourers who still want to travel back to their native states, Singh said, adding many of those labourers are from West Bengal .
The court, however, asked how can it accept this.
“Do you recognize things in West Bengal? the govt there at one point didn’t even permit migrant labourers to return…we don’t want to mention anything against anyone but things there wasn’t handled properly, judge Datta said.
He also gave an example of 30 labourers stranded in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra who had arranged a bus on their own and travelled to West Bengal a couple of months back.
“Each and each migrant labourer isn’t banking upon the government . Many are making their own arrangements to travel back to their native states,” the court said.
Advocate General Ashutosh Kumbhakoni, appearing for the Maharashtra government, on Tuesday told the court that an identical matter concerning the difficulty of migrant workers was pending before the Supreme Court.
The supreme court, after perusing the order gone by SC on July 9, noted that it had been specific to Maharashtra.