Manual scavenging deaths: Civic body chiefs to be made liable, says HC

The bench was hearing a plea seeking criminal action against nodal officers responsible for the death of manhole scavengers in the state.

Meanwhile, the state government submitted before the bench of Acting Chief Justice AJ Desai and Justice Biren Vaishnav that the state has disbursed ex gratia compensation to the legal heirs of 137 of the 152 deceased who died while cleaning sewage lines. It is trying to ascertain more details for the disbursement of the amount for the remaining 16 victims.

Assistant Government Pleader Utkarsh Sharma, on behalf of the state, informed the court that the authorities or local bodies do not employ manual scavengers and use machines to clean sewage lines. Such deaths are caused at the behest of private contractors, he stated.

“What happens is, in a small town or village, they independently contact those workers and labourers, pay them and they will enter. They will not contact us (authorities) because once they approach us, we will not permit them. We have machines… All cleaning happens with those machines… 99 per cent of these instances are private in nature,” Sharma submitted. However, ACJ Desai termed these as mere “excuses”.