PIL filed in Madras High Court seeking status report on bonded labour cases

CHENNAI: A PIL petition has been filed in the Madras High Court for a direction to the DGP and the Police Superintendents of five districts to file final reports on the FIRs filed in connection with rescued bonded labourers in Tamil Nadu.A division bench of Justices A Selvam and M Dhandapani, before which the PIL from advocate Roseann Rajan came up for hearing on Monday, issued notice to the government Pleader and posted the matter for filing counter on April 12.

According to petitioner, as many as 32 FIRs have been filed in Chennai,  Kancheepuram, Tiruvallur, Tiruvannamalai and Vellore districts in connection with bonded labour offences. Petitioner claimed bonded labour system is a cognizable offence as per section 22 of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act. The Supreme Court had directed the TN government to initiate criminal proceedings against the contractors/employers or their agents who engaged bonded labourers.

The accused are charged under various sections of the BLS Act apart from the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and some other sections of the IPC. As per Sections 10,11 of BLS Act and also various directions of the Supreme Court and GOs issued by the TN government, as well as the orders of Madras High Court dated March 12, 2015, all Sub-Divisional Magistrates are empowered to identify and rehabilitate the bonded labourers and release them with an executive order.

Referring to Tamil Nadu, petitioner said that there are so many cases to be identified with regard to the above. Even in the identified cases, FIRs had been filed only in a few cases and they are pending before the Investigating Officers without any progress in the probe from 2010.