The Karnataka High Court on Friday directed the state government to attend to complaints from migrant workers who report being confined by their employers and not being permitted to return home. The court directed the state to ensure that migrant workers are not harassed in this fashion.
The High Court issued the direction on Friday, in a petition filed by the All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU), seeking trains for migrants who wish to go back to their home states.
A division Bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice BV Nagarathna asked the state to formulate a ‘rational policy’ that takes care of ‘all categories of migrant workers’. This includes migrant workers who may or may not be housed in shelters provided by their employers or the state government.
“There has to be rational policy of the State Government laying down the manner in which all the migrant workers who wish to travel back to their home States can be allowed to travel back to their respective States,” the court’s order said.
It added that the government should take into account workers who are not living in Bengaluru and arrange trains for them.
The court stated, “If some migrant workers who are residing far away from the capital city desire to go back to their respective States and all the procedural formalities with the other States are completed, it follows that necessary arrangements for operation of Shramik Special Trains from different stations will have to be made.”
The court asked the government to prepare for a scenario where, given the large number of migrant workers waiting to go back home, only some of them can be sent at any one time.
“It is obvious that the policy will also deal with a situation where a large number of migrants are found to be eligible to travel to their respective States, but immediate arrangements can be made for transportation of only a few of them. In what manner those few will be selected is also a matter of policy decision of the State Government.” the court said.
Noting the operation of Shramik Special Trains by the Indian Railways to transport migrants back to their home states, the High Court sought to know ‘in what manner the State is going to arrange for operation of special trains for the benefit of migrants.’
On AICCTU's submission that the migrants be permitted to travel with dignity, the court said, “We are sure that the State will consider this suggestion in the light of the fundamental rights available to the migrants like all other citizens.”
The state government has been directed to place on record its policy on or before May 12 when the case will be considered next.
TNM had previously reported that four hundred workers from various states including Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, are locked in, at a labour camp in South Bengaluru, near Konanakunte Cross.
The police were not allowing the workers to leave the colony on Thursday. The General Manager, Girish J had told TNM that the workers were just not being allowed to walk home, and would be allowed to leave when the trains were back on the table. The workers however say that they are still being locked up in the labour camp. According to sources, a majority of the total 400 workers at the labour camp at Konanakunte, run by JMC Projects, want to go back to their village.
They are agitating within the colony behind the locked gate, saying that they will not work, and that they will go home.
Migrants behind the locked gate are agitated, and are protesting. In this video they sent me, they are shouting, "we're not working, we're going home!" pic.twitter.com/VamoWq0jAx
— Alithea Stephanie Mounika//ಅಲಿತ್ಯ ಮೌನಿಕಾ (@alitheasm) May 8, 2020
A similar situation has also been reported in other labour camps in Bengaluru. The Federal reported that more than 1,800 people were locked up in a labour camp on Nelamangala-Tumkur Road, near Peenya, on a construction project by three private firms. The workers had to jump over locked gates and fences to speak to the reporter.
In another instance, a group of migrant workers living near Manyata Tech Park in North Bengaluru, who have been contracted for various construction activities including road laying and cement mixing, said that they were being held against their will. Sanjeev Kumar, one of the migrants who is held at the labour camp said, “They are not allowing us to go out of the labour camp. They are making us into slaves.”