The Karnataka High Court on Thursday said that the SMSs sent to lakhs of migrant workers, who had registered on Seva Sindhu portal for travelling to their home States in Shramik special trains, seeking confirmation for travel is prima facie an exercise undertaken to exclude a large number of them from travelling back to their States.

The court made this observation after the government said that as of 9 p.m. on May 27, only 55,464 people (47,191 migrant workers) of those registered in the portal have indicated their willingness to go back to their home States by replying to the SMS sent to them.

“Knowing fully well that migrant workers registered on the portal only for travelling back to their States, the government, instead of assuring them that special trains would be arranged, sent SMSs for confirmation of their travel in a most complicated manner,” the court observed.

The court also said that the government has not placed any transparent and rational policy for selection and transportation of migrant workers registered through the portal.

A special Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice B.V. Nagarathna made these observations, in its order on PIL petitions on issues related COVID-19 lockdown. The Bench noted that despite a direction from the court on May 12, the government has not communicated to the registered migrant workers that arrangements for Shramik trains would be made for their travel.

From the data given by the government, the Bench noted that only 2.52 lakh migrant workers were sent to their home States in 177 special trains since May 3 among the 8,33,667 applications (6,25,501 related to stranded migrant workers) received on Seva Sindhu portal seeking travel arrangements in Shramik trains for 11,60,424 people.

“We understand that making travel arrangements for 8.33 lakh is a huge exercise and there will be some hitches. However, there has to be a transparent policy to select amongst those registered to travel on a particular train and communicate the information to them,” the Bench said.

Noticing that a Shramik train is being operated to West Bengal from Bengaluru on May 28, the Bench directed the government to submit to court details of the manner in which the migrants were selected to travel in the train.

The Bench also asked why the government has not made arrangements for travel of over 6 lakh migrant workers all these days and had resorted to SMS confirmation even after their intent to travel was recorded in applications received through the portal.

Meanwhile, Additional Advocate-General Dhyan Chinnappa clarified that the government had no intention to exclude migrants from travelling and will communicate to all those registered on portal that arrangements will be made for transportation. He also pointed out that SMS was received from around 1 lakh people confirming their travel request.