The Karnataka High Court on Thursday asked the State government to examine whether benefits under the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, can be extended to those labourers who have been deprived of earnings in view of COVID-19 lockdown.

Also, the court asked the government to submit a report on compliance of directions issued in 2018 by the Supreme Court, in the case of National Campaign Committee for Central Legislation on Construction Labour, for effective implementation of various provisions of the BOCW Act, 1996.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice V. Srishananda issued the direction during the hearing of a PIL petition, filed by former MLC Ramesh Babu.

The petitioner had sought various directions for paying benefits, including ₹10,000 as interim compensation, from the fund created under the Act to all labourers in the unorganised sector who have lost their jobs or are unemployed due to the lockdown.

The bench said that the benefit under the Act can be given only to the eligible building and other construction workers defined and registered under Section 11 of the Act.

The government counsel told the bench that ₹5,000 each was already paid to around 21 lakh registered workers by way of direct transfer to their linked bank accounts from the fund created under the Act.

Pointing out that Section 22 1(f) allows the State Welfare Board to grant financial assistance to registered workers to meet medical expenses for treatment of major ailments of self, or dependant, the bench said that the benefit of this provision, perhaps, could be extended to the beneficiaries if they test positive for COVID-19.

As petitioner’s counsel said that some of the beneficiaries have not received ₹5,000 from the State government, the bench asked him to give particulars of such beneficiaries to the government counsel. Further hearing was adjourned till May 27.