Bonded Labour Before the Courts

In one line

The bonded labour litigation established that article 21 is engaged, that the presumption runs in the labourer's favour, that a District Magistrate has a positive duty to identify and release, and that rehabilitation is part of the obligation and not a separate favour.

The identification decision

The case. Bandhua Mukti Morcha v. Union of India, (1984) 3 SCC 161.

Facts. An organisation working on bonded labour addressed a letter to the Supreme Court alleging that a large number of workmen in stone quarries and stone crushers in the Faridabad district of Haryana were living in intolerable conditions and that many were bonded labourers. The letter annexed a survey. It was treated as a petition under article 32. The Court appointed commissioners to visit the quarries and report. The State denied the existence of bonded labour and objected that a letter was not a petition, that the petitioner had no standing, and that the commissioners' reports were not evidence.

Held. The objections were rejected. A letter may be treated as a petition; a person acting bona fide may move the Court for workers unable to move it themselves; and the Court may appoint a commissioner to investigate facts, the report being material on which the Court may act, subject to the respondent's right to file objections. On the merits, the conditions in the quarries violated article 21, because the right to live with human dignity derives from the directive principles and includes protection of the health and strength of workers, humane conditions of work and the basic necessities of life. Where it is shown that a labourer is made to provide forced labour, the Court will presume that they are doing so in consideration of an advance or other economic consideration and are therefore a bonded labourer, unless the employer or the State proves otherwise, which is the constitutional counterpart of section 15 of the Act. The Court issued a series of directions to the Central and State Governments as to identification, release, rehabilitation, the implementation of the labour statutes and the constitution of Vigilance Committees, and retained the matter for compliance.

The two propositions to carry away. Article 21 is engaged by the conditions of work, not merely by detention. And the burden lies on the employer or the State, which matches the constitutional position to the statutory one in section 15.

The rehabilitation decision

The case. Neeraja Chaudhary v. State of Madhya Pradesh, (1984) 3 SCC 243.

Facts. Bonded labourers who had been identified and released in Madhya Pradesh following earlier proceedings had not been rehabilitated. A petitioner moved the Supreme Court complaining that released labourers had returned to bondage or to destitution because nothing had been done for them after release.