Bhuvana Marni
Published on: October 07, 2022 at 21:21 IST
The Delhi High Court ordered the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to compensate the families of two men who passed away after breathing in hazardous vapours within a sewer in the Mundka neighbourhood of the city, a total of Rs. 10 lakhs on Thursday.
In a 2014 Supreme Court decision in Safai Karamchari Andolan & Ors vs. Union of India, a division bench consisting of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad further requested that the authorities examine the dependents’ request for a compassionate appointment.
The judge said that if the directive has not been followed within the specified time frame, the authority’s vice chairman shall be present on November 14, the next day of the hearing.
The bench instructed the DDA to report its decision on the appointment within 30 days.
“It is unfortunate that even after 75 years of independence, poor people are forced to work as manual scavengers and the provisions of Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 and Rules frame therein are not being followed,” the court said.
The bench noted the compliance report submitted on behalf of the DDA that the two dead employees perished while cleaning the manhole on their own, without receiving any guidance from the authority.
According to a PTI news source, the two men who passed away last month were Ashok Kumar, a security guard, and Rohit Chandiliya, a sweeper at Delhi Development Authority apartments.
According to the news source, Chandiliya was the first person to enter the sewer and was overcome by the noxious vapours inside before passing out.
After that, Kumar entered the sewer to save Chandiliya and collapsed there as well.
After being transported to a hospital, the two guys were pronounced dead.
The Delhi High Court was recently informed by the Center that fewer catastrophic incidents while cleaning septic tanks and sewers had occurred as a result of several government measures.
The brief affidavit was submitted by the Central Government on behalf of the Department of Social Justice and Empowerment in a PIL filed in 2019 by Advocate Amit Sahni, who sought strict adherence to the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, in order to avoid fatalities from manual septic tank and sewer cleaning.