Delhi HC Asks Petitioner To Give CDs Of Manual Scavenging To Delhi Govt

Moved by a video posted by a legislator on Facebook showing men working as manual scavengers in Delhi despite the government's claimed ban on the practice, an advocate has moved the Delhi High Court seeking a strict ban on manual scavenging which had been declared illegal in the year 1993.

Advocate Amit Sahni moved the high court after coming across a video posted by an MLA from Sultanpur Majra Constituency of Delhi that showed manual scavengers allegedly employed by the Delhi Government's Public Works Department to clean sewer on Main Road near Neta Ji Subhash Place in the Shakurpur Vidhan Sabha area of New Delhi.

The video showed men cleaning sewers without any safety equipment despite the hue and cry raised last year over men dying while working as scavengers.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Rajendra Menon asked Sahni to share the CDs of the video with the Delhi government's Public Works Department, the Social Welfare Department and the Delhi Jal Board, all impleaded as respondents by him.

His petition has been put up for April 26 with a similar petition pending before the court.

Sahni rued how the government had failed to implement in letter and spirit the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 which banned insanitary latrines in the country as well as hazardous cleaning through manual scavengers.

"Unfortunately the Government of NCT of Delhi despite claimed to have imposed blanket ban on manual cleaning of Sewers on 21-08-2017 in pursuant to the directions of Lt. Governor, who had called a High Level Meeting over deaths during sewer cleaning, which was also attended by Chief Minister Mr. Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi PWD Minister Satender Jain and Social Welfare Minister Rajendra Pal Gautam. It was also assured that no person will be allowed to go inside the gutter for sewer cleaning under any circumstances and that there will be complete ban on it".

He said the government had been engaging manual scavengers directly or indirectly by outsourcing the cleaning work to private contractors and the same is done to take advantage of the loopholes in the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, which does not ban the hazardous cleaning manually but puts certain safeguards only.

It is to be noted that a DLSA study pursuant to a similar writ petition before the high court revealed that even PhD and diploma holders belonging to a certain caste were working as manual scavengers.

Another petition before the Supreme Court claims one person dying every five minutes while working as a manual scavenger. It seeks registration of FIR in all cases of deaths of manual scavengers and persons engaging them to be booked for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.