Send rescued kids home: HC to govt

Lack of rehabilitation mechanism a month after child labour ban “classic case of apathy”: Court
Tanu Sharma

New Delhi, November 7 Indian Express (Delhi News Line)

Almost a month after the ban on child labour came into force, Delhi High Court rapped the State Government for the “absence” of any mechanism to send the children rescued from different factories back to their homes in different states.
Terming it as a “classic case of apathy”, the Bench of acting Chief Justice Vijender Jain and Justice Kailash Gambhir noted how the state government had rescued many children “but no effective mechanism has been put in place for the rescued children to send them back to their parents in their respective states”.

The Court also regretted the fact that despite its orders of fining the employers of such children a sum of Rs 20,000, the direction had “not been set into motion” yet. “The net result is that when the children are rescued they are put in a children’s home and thereafter nobody is taking any care of them,” said the judges. The Bench also directed the State Labour Department to send back the rescued children to their parents “without waiting for the certificate of the SDM till the mechanism as agreed at the Ranchi Meeting is put into force”. Thereafter, they pointed out, it will be the obligation of the respective State Governments to take the children back to their respective homes. The directive came in response to a PIL filed by an NGO, Social Jurist, that highlighted how 425 children rescued from zari factories in Zafarabad were simply handed over to so-called relatives or parents by the Child Welfare Committees. Worse, nine of the children, all belonging to Bihar, who were rescued in subsequent raids in October 2006 are still languishing in the government’s children home at Lajpat Nagar. Appearing before the Court, Piyush Sharma, Joint Labour Commissioner-cum-Joint Secretary (Labour), apprised the judges about the decision taken at the meeting that was recently held between the representatives of Delhi, Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal.

The Bench also ordered the state government to immediately implement the Supreme Court’s directive of taking money from the employers of child labour “which can be used for the rehabilitation of the children.” A compliance report in this regard will be filed before the next date.

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