BALRAM SINGH Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The unforgettable annals of our history not only have charted the numerous sacrifices of the people who fought for independence from the foreign imperial ruler but also a lesser-known freedom that for millennia eluded a large mass of people, who were nearly invisible. They were trapped in the thralldom of a solitude from which there was no liberation. That was centuries old stigmatising social practices that led to their depravation, to such levels that they were not even recognised as human beings. Among these practices was one which generations of people, were made to perform the meanest task of manual scavenging. It was to address this kind of social practice and with the resolve to completely out light and emancipate those trapped in it from the thralldom of bondage, that the constitution framers ensured three important provisions, which stare at us like beacons, assuring not only equality but fraternity amongst all people: the prohibition of untouchability; the outlawing of forced or involuntary labour and the freedom against exploitation.

(2.) To flesh out and give shape to the objects of these provisions, Parliament intervened and enacted several legislations. The first was the Civil Rights Act 1955; its provisions were amended in 1976 to outlaw the practice of untouchability. The penalization of these severe forms with stringent punishment was sought to be achieved by the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 which was further strengthened by later amendments. In that ensuring full economic freedom and true emancipation were two enactments, the "Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993" (hereinafter "Act 1993") and the "Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013" (hereinafter "Act 2013").

(3.) The present petition is filed under Article 32 of the Constitution of India, seeking directions to Respondents (Union of India and all the States and Union Territories) to implement provisions, inter alia, of the Act of 1993 and Act of 2013.