BANDHUA MUKTI MORCHA Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner is an organisation dedicated to the cause of release of bonded labourers in the country. The system of bonded labour has been prevalent in various parts of the country since long prior to the attainment of political freedom and it constitutes an ugly and shameful feature of our national life. This system based on exploitation by a few socially and economically powerful persons trading on the misery and suffering of large numbers of men and holding them in bondage is a relic of a feudal hierarchical society which hypocritically proclaims the divinity of man but treats large masses of people belonging to the lower rungs of the social ladder or economically impoverished segments of society as dirt and chattel. This system under which one person can be bonded to provide labour to another for years and years until an alleged debt is supposed to be wiped out which never seems to happen during the lifetime of the bonded labourer, is totally incompatible with the new egalitarian socio-economic order which we have promised to build and it is not only an affront to basic human dignity but also constitutes gross and revolting violation of constitutional values. The appalling conditions in which bonded labourers live, not as humans but as serfs, recall to the mind the following lines from "man with the Hoe" which almost seem to have been written with reference to this neglected and forlorn species of Indian humanity :

(2.) This pernicious practice of bonded labour existed in many States and obviously with the ushering in of independence,. it could not be allowed to continue to blight the national life any longer and hence, when we framed our Constitution, we enacted Article 23 of the Constitution which prohibits "traffic inhuman beings and begar and other similar forms of forced labour" practised by anyone. The system of bonded labour therefore stood prohibited by Article 23 and there could have been no more solemn and effective prohibition than the one enacted in the Constitution in Article 23. But, it appears that though the Constitution was enacted as far back as 26/01/1950 and many years passed since then, no serious effort was made to give effect to Article 23 and to stamp out the shocking practice of bonded labour. It was only in 1976 that Parliament enacted the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976 providing for the abolition of bonded labour system with a view to preventing the economic and physical exploitation of the weaker S. of the people. But, unfortunately, as subsequent events have shown and that is borne out also by the report made by the Centre for Rural Development Administration, Indian Institute of Public Administration to the Ministry of Labour, government of India on "rehabilitation of Bonded Labour in Monghyr District, Bihar", the report made by the Public Policy and Planning Division of the Indian Institute of Public Administration to the Ministry of Labour, government of India on "evaluation Study of Bonded Labour-Rehabilitation Scheme in Tehri-Garhwal, U. P. ", the report of Laxmi Dhar Misra, the Director-General (Labour Welfare) of the government of India based on On-the-Spot Studies Regarding Identification) Release of Bonded Labourers and Rehabilitation of Freed Labourers in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, orissa, Bihar, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Kerala and the report of the National Seminar on "identification and Rehabilitation of Bonded Labour" held from February 7 to 9, 1983 that the pernicious practice of bonded labour has not yet been totally eradicated from the national scene and that it continues to disfigure the social and economic life of the country at certain places. There are still a number of bonded labourers in various parts of the country and significantly, as pointed out in the report of the National Seminar on "identification and Rehabilitation of Bonded Labour" a large number of them belong to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes account for the next largest number while the few who are not from Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes are generally landless agricultural labourers. It is absolutely essential-we would unhesitatingly declare that it is a constitutional imperative-that the bonded labourers must be identified and released from the shackles of bondage so that they can assimilate themselves in the mainstream of civilised human society and realise the dignity, beauty and worth of human existence. The process of identification and release of bonded labourers' is a process of discovery and transformation of non-beings into human-beings and what it involves is eloquently described in the beautiful lines of Rabindra Nath Tagore in "kadi and Kamal":

(3.) We also find that in some cases the State governments in order to shirk their obligation) take shelter under the plea that there may be some forced labour in their State but that is not bonded labour. We shall have occasion to deal with this plea a little later when we refer to the definition of 'bonded labour' given in the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976 which at first blush appears to be a narrow definition limited only to a situation where a debtor is forced to provide labour to a creditor. The State of Haryana has in the present case tried to quibble with this definition of 'bonded labour' and its argument has been that these labourers may be providing forced labour but they are not bonded labourers within the meaning of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976 and they may therefore be freed by the court if it so pleases but the State of Haryana cannot be compelled to rehabilitate them. We are constrained to observe that this argument, quite apart from its invalidity, ill behoves a State government which is committed to the cause of socialism and claims to be striving to ensure social justice to the vulnerable S. of the community. But we do not wish to anticipate the discussion in regard to this argument and at the present stage we content ourselves by merely observing that it is unfortunate that any State government should take up the plea that persons who are forced to provide labour may be forced labourers but unless it is shown by them by proper evidence tested by cross-examination that they are forced to provide labour against a bonded debt, they cannot be said to be bonded labourers and the State government cannot be held to be under any obligation to rehabilitate them.