SC Unhappy With Centre’s Roadmap On Destitute Widows

Your roadmap to improve condition of destitute widows has not addressed issues like national policy on empowerment of women, nourishment, sanitation and hygiene at shelter homes, the Supreme Court has told the Centre.

“Important aspect of re-marriage of widows aged between 16 and 20 years was missing and the government should encourage it”, a bench comprising Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta observed after going through the roadmap given by the Centre.

On July 7 the Centre had told the court that a roadmap for improving the condition of destitute widows in different parts of the country has been prepared.

The court had raised concern over the pathetic condition of the shelter homes for them.

The government had said that it had furnished the agreed directions as sought by the court, in which they have also given a roadmap to deal with the issue.

The apex court had earlier asked the Centre to convene a meeting to consider the suggestions mooted by National Commission for Women (NCW) and formulate directions to improve the condition of destitute widows.

The apex court said it did not doubt the Centre's plan to improve the condition of destitute widows across the country, but it has to be done in a proper manner.

A national policy for empowerment of women had come in 2001. Over 15 years have gone by, but no empowerment of women is there, the bench observed after Solicitor General (SG) Ranjit Kumar read out the contents of government's roadmap.

There are two-three things which we want to say. You need to update the national policy for empowerment of women. You have not addressed the issue of nourishment. Most of these women are malnourished. It is a huge problem. You address this issue or else we are not going to reach anywhere, it said. The apex court reserved its order on the pleas seeking directions to the Centre and the state government to provide shelter and other necessary facilities to widows in Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh who have been abandoned by their family members and other parts of the country.

The bench said it was contemplating constituting a committee which would go through various reports filed before it in the matter and would give suggestions on the steps which were required to be taken to improve the situation. It asked the parties to give names so that a committee could be formed after which the SG suggested three names -- Anuradha Kapoor of the NGO 'Swayam', Suneeta Dhar of the NGO 'Jagori' and Meera Khanna of 'Guild of Service'.