Can't stop or monitor movement of migrant workers on roads, says Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court said that it cannot prevent migrant workers from walking thousands of kilometres to their homes or falling asleep on railway tracks and left it to state governments to provide them with transport to their destinations.

“People are walking and not stopping. How can we stop it?” said justice L Nageshwara Rao, who headed the bench.

“How can anyone stop them from sleeping on the tracks?” said justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul. “Let the states decide. Why should the court decide or hear?”


The bench objected to petitions being filed in court solely on the basis of newspaper reports.

The court’s reaction was in response to a petition filed by Alok Alakh Srivastava seeking a direction to district magistrates throughout the country to step in and prevent a repeat of incidents such as one recently in which some migrants who had fallen asleep from exhaustion were run over by a train.

“It is impossible for this court to monitor who is walking and who is not,” Rao said. Kaul dared the lawyer to go and implement court directives. “We will give you a special pass, go and check.”

In response to a question by the court on whether the return migration to rural areas from the cities under lockdown can be stopped, solicitor general Tushar Mehta told the court that it would be counterproductive to halt them using force.

He said governments had been helping and providing transport. But workers are not waiting and setting off on foot, he said. In that case, nothing can be done, he said.

The bench then dismissed the application that had specifically referred to the deaths of migrants on the railway tracks and in road accidents in Una in Madhya Pradesh and Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh.

Migrant workers have been leaving the cities, having run out of money due to the lockdown and unable to afford food or rent. State governments are transporting them in buses and trains but many, too desperate to wait, have begun walking or cycling home.