Pay Rs 30 lakh compensation each to kin of 2 manual scavengers who died: HC to state

Mumbai: The continued existence of manual scavenging is “a serious blot on a civilized society,” observed the Bombay high court at Aurangabad on Monday and, around five years after the death of two men cleaning a septic tank sans protective gear, held the state liable to pay compensation of Rs 30 lakh each to a widow and a mother.The state, however, can in its discretion recover the amount from the contractor, agency or individuals responsible for violation of a special law introduced in 2013 to ensure complete eradication of manual scavenging from society, the HC said.The continued instances and deaths reflect a “collective failure to completely eradicate this inhuman and degrading practice,” said Justices N B Suryawanshi and Vaishali Patil-Jadhav.

It robs citizens of their constitutionally promised dignity, equality and fraternity, the HC said and cited how in 2014 itself, the Supreme Court called for a time-bound end to the degrading practice.The deaths that led to a petition in 2024 were during a cleaning at a private property in Nanded in Sept 2021. Both men, daily wagers, drowned in the tank. One left behind a widow and nine-year-old and the other, his parents, helpless, advocate Abha Singh who sought accountability and compensation from the Maharashtra govt, argued.

There were no permissions sought from local authorities for the hazardous work, and the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act of 2013 says in rare authorized instances where cleaning can’t be avoided, employers must provide full protective gear, Singh submitted. Police registered an FIR in Nov 2021 under the special law. In 2023, the widow and mother sought compensation of Rs 10 lakh from the Nanded collector, she submitted.Govt lawyer P K Lakhotiya said the cleaning and deaths occurred on private premises. He cited a 2019 govt resolution (GR) of the social justice department to argue that it puts the liability on the private property owner to pay Rs 10 lakh each to the families, which the state in 2022 directed be paid by him.The private residence owner paid Rs 2.25 lakh each in 2022 on state’s invocation of the 2019 GR, and no further liability rests on him, argued his advocate G R Ingole.

He said all liability rests on govt authorities. Besides, he claimed financial difficulty.Last July, the Nanded collector as a special case sought Rs 10 lakh each be paid by the state too, on humanitarian grounds. The state’s response was awaited.“Incidents of death due to manual scavenging compel us to introspect as to how far we have truly realised the constitutional vision of equality, dignity and fraternity,” the HC said, and Justice Patil-Jadhav authoring the judgement invoked Dr B R Ambedkar’s words, “For ours is a battle not for wealth or for power; it is a battle for freedom.

It is a battle for the reclamation of human personality.”The SC had in in 2014 specifically directed that entering sewer lines or septic tanks without adequate safety gear would be a crime, even in emergency situations, and that for every such sewer or septic tank death, families be compensated with Rs 10 lakh.The HC directed the state to within three months see if the widow and mother can be found eligible under the special law to rehabilitate them.