The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to urgently hear a petition filed by activists Harsh Mander and Anjali Bhardwaj that the declaration of the 21-day national lockdown without prior information “precipitated an unprecedented humanitarian crisis” for migrant workers, resulting in their mass exodus to their home towns.
The petition said the lockdown caused widespread panic across the country and led to job loss for millions of migrant workers. It was mentioned by advocate Prashant Bhushan before a Bench led by Justice L. Nageswara Rao, which agreed to take up the plea when the court assembles next.
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The petition wants the Centre and States to jointly and severally ensure payment of wages/ minimum wages to migrant workers within a week, whether employed by other establishments, contractors or self-employed, as they are unable to work and earn wages, during the period of the lockdown. It also sought a direction from the court to Central and State governments to immediately activate the National and State Advisory Committees of experts in the field of disaster management and public health to prepare national and State disaster management plans for dealing with COVID-19.
“The order, for which no prior intimation was given, created a panic across the country and led to the instantaneous loss of jobs and wages of millions of migrant workers employed in establishments across India or self-employed as street vendors, rickshaw pullers, domestic house helps, petty job workers, etc. This led to the large scale exodus of these migrant workers to their home towns,” the petition said.
“The lockdown has precipitated an unprecedented humanitarian crisis especially among the class of migrant workers and it is the government, both Central and State, that have to take adequate measures in accordance with National and State plans drawn out under the Disaster Management Act, 2005,” the petition said.
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The petition has been filed even as the Centre maintains that fake information about the lockdown created the panic.
The petition said the declaration spread panic to such an extent that “migrant workers crowded in large numbers of many thousands at bus terminals, railway stations, inter-State borders, etc to find their way home, potentially exposing them to the virus and escalating, in fact, the risk of the spread of this virus”.
Mr. Mander and Ms. Bhardwaj criticised the Ministry of Home Affairs communication that employers should continue to pay the wages to their workers. They said the communication does not take into account the harsh realities that establishments which employ migrant workers are mostly small themselves and can ill-afford to pay their wages during a lockdown. Besides, these establishments have also been closed down and are generating no income.
