Coming down heavily on manual scavenging, the Bombay High Court has said that while India boasts of reaching the other side of the moon, the caste system continues to force some citizens into work that is “below human dignity”. The court made the observation while striking down a Maharashtra government policy that placed the responsibility of compensating families of workers who died during hazardous cleaning on private societies and employers.
A division bench of Justices Bharati Dangre and Manjusha Deshpande directed the Maharashtra government to immediately compensate the dependants of such workers, irrespective of whether they were employed by public or private entities. The state can subsequently recover the amount from the private employer or entity responsible, the court said in its order passed last week.
Rs 30 lakh compensation
The bench directed the government to identify, within six months, all persons who have died while undertaking “hazardous cleaning” as defined under Section 2(d) of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013. Once identified, the dependants of each deceased worker must be paid compensation of Rs 30 lakh.
“In the 21st century, we boast about reaching the other side of the moon, yet the hard reality that stares us in the face is that the social evil of the caste system is still followed in our country, which forces some of our citizens to do work that is below human dignity,” the court observed.
The bench said that despite the Constitution guaranteeing equality before law, the country had not freed itself from the social evil even more than 75 years after adopting the Constitution. It described manual scavenging as an inhumane practice that has forced members of particular communities to undertake such work for generations despite statutory prohibitions and Supreme Court rulings.
Policy violates equality
The ruling came on petitions filed by trade union Shramik Janata Sangh and others challenging Item 11 of Maharashtra government resolutions dated December 12, 2019, and April 30, 2025. The provision made private individuals or employers responsible for paying compensation when manual scavengers working for them died, instead of requiring the state or local authorities to make the payment.
The court noted that the 2013 law does not distinguish between workers engaged in hazardous cleaning on the basis of who employs them. Its purpose, the bench stressed, is to eliminate the dehumanising practice of manual scavenging.
Holding the policy to be “clearly violative” of the fundamental right to equality, the bench struck down the disputed provision in both government resolutions. It directed the state and local authorities to disburse the mandated compensation to families immediately and recover the money from private employers subsequently wherever applicable.