Head of civic body will be liable if manual scavenging takes place: Gujarat HC

AHMEDABAD: Calling for an "immediate stoppage of the practice of manual scavenging", the Gujarat high court said on Monday that if any person is made to enter a manhole or sewer to clean it, the head of the civic body concerned - municipal commissioner, municipality chief officer or gram panchayat sarpanch - will be held liable for violation of the law prohibiting this inhuman practice.
Responding to a PIL filed by an NGO seeking to end the practice and for payment of proper compensation for such deaths, a bench of acting Chief Justice AJ Desai and Justice Biren Vaishav ordered the state government to stop manual scavenging by the next hearing on June 19.
The NGO, Manav Garima, also complained that the authorities have not paid compensation in many cases where workers died after being made to enter sewers.
The government told the HC that out of 152 such cases, compensation has been disbursed in only 137 cases. The HC ordered the state government to pay compensation to the legal heirs of the deceased workers by the next hearing.
The PIL was filed in 2017 but was not heard further due to the demise of the petitioner's advocate, Hirak Ganguly. Last month advocate SH Iyer requested the HC for an early hearing, saying many workers had lost their lives recently.