Seven women’s shelter homes get HC breather

Nagpur: In a respite to destitute women staying at seven shelter homes in Vidarbha, the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court on Monday granted a status quo to Maharashtra government’s decision to close their operations and discontinue grants to them.
Seven such homes under Swadhar Greh Scheme, financed by the central and state governments in the ratio of 60:40, knocked judiciary’s doors after district women and child development officer told them to close their operations and shift the inmates to other homes on account of non-compliance of deficiencies.
While issuing a notice for final disposal of the cases, a division bench comprising justices Ravi Deshpande and Nitin Suryawanshi adjourned the hearing by eight weeks.
The petitioners — Ujjwal Gondwana Mahila Mandal, Legal Literacy Movement for Women and others — through counsels Anand Parchure, Devdutta Deshpande, Ram Heda and Omkar Deshpande, prayed for quashing and setting aside the July 30 order of district officer to cancel their approval. They also demanded release of government grants in a time-bound manner for all petitioners.
The counsels further contended that no reasons were assigned for discontinuing the shelter homes. On the contrary, in some cases, there is a recommendation by the district women and child development officer himself to continue the approval. The officer, however, clarified that though deficiencies in certain other cases were removed, those weren’t verified yet.
The Swadhar scheme was floated by the centre in 1969 with a view to prevent destitute women from getting exploited and supporting them to survive. After the NGOs were allowed to set up shelter homes, the centre modified the scheme on March 23, 2018. The petitioners were then transferred to the new scheme titled ‘Swadhar Greh’ where release of funds were fixed in the 60:40 ratio between centre and state.
Last year, on June 5, the government gave directives to all shelter homes to submit a fresh proposal under the modified Swadhar scheme. However, some deficiencies were found and they were directed to remove those and submit a fresh proposal.