Tanvi Sinha
Karnataka High Court re-emphasizes the importance of the enforcement of Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act (Manual Scavengers Act) after observing that the State government had failed to implement it.
A two-judge bench of Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Vishwajith Shetty states that the Indian Constitution does not allow for manual scavenging which they termed as the “most inhuman” practice, last year.
December 2020, the High court had issued a 17 point litany of directions to ensure that the state government did its best to enforce the act.
However, the matter came up once again today, as the court was made aware of the death of two manual scavengers who had suffocated to death in a manhole at Kalburgi on January 28th.
The bench is now directing the state to place on record any kind of action taken by them against the persons responsible for the crime, and has further listed the matter to be heard on February 10th.