Bonded Labour is most
widely used method to enslave people. People are affected by it badly yet
serious thought has not been given by the law implementing agencies, though
stringent provisions under India legal system are available. Working in Delhi
for rights of the children, AFD-Pratidhi has been doing advocacy for effective implementation
of the provisions of legislations pertaining to children.
The Bonded Labour
System (Abolition) Act, 1976 is based on article 23 of Indian constitution,
which aims at prohibiting the forced labour. The section-21 of the
said Act states:
Offences to be tried by
Executive Magistrates.-
1. The State Government may
confer, on an Executive Magistrate, the powers of a Judicial Magistrate of the
first class or of the second class for the trial of offences under this Act;
and, on such conferment of powers, the Executive Magistrate, on whom the powers
are so conferred, shall be deemed, for the purposes of the Code of Criminal
Procedure, 1973 (2 of 1974 ), to be a Judicial Magistrate of the first class,
or of the second class, as the case may be.
2. An offence under this
Act may be tried summarily by a Magistrate.
AFD- Pratidhi took up
this issue in 2009 and did following interventions:
An RTI was filed on
10.11.2009 with Divisional Commissioner Office, Delhi to get information on
compliance of section- 21, of The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act,
1976 https://app.box.com/s/2b21p9ygajs9iafcl39e (Link to RTI Application).The RTI was transferred to the District offices and Labour Department.
Both the departments were passing the buck on each other and did not provide
the relevant information. Therefore, first appeal was filed with the First
Appellate Authority (FAA) i.e. Divisional Commissioner (D.C.), Delhi on
31.12.2009, which was further transferred to the 9 District Offices of the Dy.
Commissioners (Revenue). District FAAs instructed to PIOs to provide the sought
information. Thereafter we started getting replies from the Districts in which
we found that the power of Judicial Magistrate was not conferred on any of the
Executive Magistrate by the Govt. We followed this issue again by filling
another RTI with L.G. Office to know what action has been taken to comply with
section- 21, of The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976.
A letter was sent to the
Office of the Chief Secretary, Delhi on 23.05.2011 requesting him to issue a
notification conferring power of Judicial Magistrate on an Executive Magistrate
as per Section 21 of The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976. https://app.box.com/s/xbxin63wx86zdgvkiqsx (link to the letter Chief Secretary, Delhi)
On June 28, 2011, The
Hindu took up the issue and did a story namely “Apathy shrouds bonded labour
cases”. AFD- Pratidhi’s intervention exerted the pressure on the Govt.
to issue the notification in compliance with section- 21 of The Bonded Labour
System (Abolition) Act, 1976. On the basis of the story done by Hindu ,
National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) took suo-moto cognizance and issued a
notice to Delhi Govt. on 29.06.2011 “to submit the requisite information/report
within 4 weeks from the date of receipt of this notice”. https://app.box.com/s/txrn7m3voybef3xqwh5r (link ot NHRC notice)
On 03.02.2012, Govt. of NCT of Delhi issued notification in compliance with the notice of NHRC and Section 21 of The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976 and conferred the powers of Judicial Magistrates of first class on Additional District Magistrates. Copy of the notification was received under RTI.
On 03.02.2012, Govt. of NCT of Delhi issued notification in compliance with the notice of NHRC and Section 21 of The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976 and conferred the powers of Judicial Magistrates of first class on Additional District Magistrates. Copy of the notification was received under RTI.
The issue again taken up
with media and The Hindu did another story namely “NGO alleges no prosecution in
bonded labour cases in the country for the past 35 years” on 18.08.2012
to push the Govt. to implement the notification, which was still on paper. Not
a single trial was done in compliance with said notification on Section- 21 of
The Bonded labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976.
Issuing a notification
by the Govt. is a step ahead in the battle against slavery. The implementation
of notification is another important issue which is yet to be resolved. We are
making our continuous efforts in this direction.