The High Court had on Thursday said only those migrants who test negative for COVID-19 should be allowed into the state.
The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the Orissa High Court order which directed that migrants who want to return to the state must test negative for COVID-19. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and Advocate Kanu Agrawal told the apx court that the Ministry of Home Affairs had allowed migrants who hav no symptom to return on condition of quarantine in native state.
The High Court had on Thursday said only those migrants who test negative for COVID-19 should be allowed into the state, forcing the state government to immediately cancel permission given to other states, including Gujarat, to transport stranded labourers by train.
A bench of Justices S Panda and K R Mohapatra, while hearing a petition on the return of migrants, said, “State government should ensure that all the migrants who are in queue to come to Odisha should be tested negative of COVID-19 before boarding the conveyance”.
According to Odisha’s Information and Public Relations Department, Ganjam district saw a spike in coronavirus cases after 17 people who returned from Surat tested positive. Odisha’s coronavirus count reached 219 on Thursday evening.
Nearly three lakh workers, mostly from Odisha’s Ganjam district, work in diamond cutting and textile units in Gujarat’s Surat. They started coming back to Odisha after the Centre allowed movement of migrant labourers during the ongoing lockdown. The first train from Surat to Odisha was flagged off on May 2, and 16 trains have left for Odisha from Surat carrying 19,200 people.
According to the Odisha government, 4,225 migrants from different states arrived in Odisha on Thursday, and a total of 49,765 since May 3. The state expects at least 5 lakh people to return.