'Panic, Fear Bigger Issues Than Coronavirus': Supreme Court Seeks Report From Centre On Migration Of Workers

Supreme Court on Monday observed that the migration of labourers out of panic and fear is becoming a bigger problem than the coronavirus. Hearing petitions seeking relief for thousands of migrant workers, the top court said it would not create more confusion by issuing directions on measures that the government is already taking to deal with the issue.

Supreme Court, however, sought a status report from the Centre by Tuesday on the measures taken in view of the large-scale migration of labourers to their native villages. Many migrant workers are leaving big cities en masse as they lack resources to sustain during the 21-day coronavirus lockdown issued to contain coronavirus outbreak.

A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justice L Nageswara Rao took up two separate PILs filed by advocates Alakh Alok Srivastava and Rashmi Bansal on the issue of migration of labourers through video-conferencing.

"We don't want to deal with the things government is already handling," it said. "We were noticing that your petition had prayers, some of which have already been taken care of by the government."

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, said the migration of labourers needs to be stopped to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and the Centre as well as the states concerned have taken the requisite steps to deal with it.

The bench posted the matters for hearing on Tuesday.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the 21-day lockdown on March 24. Since then, there has been an exodus of migrant workers from big cities to their villages due to the lockdown. These migrant workers, who worked as daily wagers in big cities, have started journeying towards their native villages.

Many of these workers have been walking to their destination as there is no public transport.

Centre has asked all state governments to seal the borders to stop the movement of migrants in an attempt to stop community transmission of coronavirus. State governments have been asked to provide food and shelter to these migrants at wherever they are. (With PTI Inputs)