Mumbai: Bombay High Court takes suo motu cognisance of migrant workers’ plight

The Bombay High Court recently took suo motu (on its own) cognizance of the plight of the migrant workers from drought-affected area of Marathwada region in Maharashtra. 

A division bench of Acting Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice Sandeep Marne also appointed two advocates to assist the court and to file a proper petition in the matter. 

“We appoint and request Mihir Desai, senior advocate and Pradnya Talekar, advocate, to assist the Court. Talekar may prepare proper petition,” the order read. 

News report highlighted exploitation of migrant workers

The court took cognisance of a news report published last month in a national daily highlighting the financial and sexual exploitation of migrant workers in the State’s sugar belt.

“The article deals with the plight of the migrant workers from the drought-affected area of Marathwada region, wherein they are required to migrate to western Maharashtra’s Sangli, Kolhapur, Pune, Satara, Solapur and Ahmednagar, known as the sugar belt,” the court read. 

70 percent villages emptied in every winter

The article claimed that 70 per cent of 500-odd villages in Beed, Osmanabad, Jalna, Latur and some parts of Nanded and Parbhani districts are emptied every winter. The tolis, groups of workers, either stay on the sugar factory premises or in the sugarcane fields. Families move into temporary structures that provide little shelter as winter turns to summer and then the rains arrive, flooding their makeshift homes.

The order added: “The plight of these workers has narrated qua financial exploitation and exploitation of lady workers also. The workers have also narrated the ordeals they have to undergo. The statements of such migrant workers are also part of the said article.”