The Delhi High Court today asked the AAP government and the civic bodies as to what steps they have taken to eliminate the "evil practice" of manual scavenging from the national capital.
A bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and S P Garg ordered that a joint survey of manual scavengers be carried out by the Delhi government, the three municipal corporations, the Northern Railways and the Cantonment Board here in accordance with the 2013 law enacted for their rehabilitation.
The court directed that a report of the survey be filed before the next date of hearing on August 21.
The authorities in their report have to "indicate the areas where manual scavenging is resorted to, the number of persons employed by each (of the authorities) for the work and the steps taken to eliminate the evil practice and the alternatives to such work", it said.
The Delhi government, during the brief proceedings, did not want to be involved in the survey work, but the bench said, since "there is one city government, you take charge of the survey".
The government also told the court that a committee has been set up to ensure the implementation of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013.
The court was hearing of a PIL filed in 2007 for the rehabilitation of manual scavengers.
It had earlier termed as "disgraceful" the existence of manual scavenging in the city despite a law prohibiting such a practice and had said, "We are a country of poor people but not for poor people."
It is "ridiculous and shocking", the court had observed when informed by the Delhi State Legal Services Authority (DSLSA) that one of the manual scavengers was a "graduate".
The DSLSA, in an interim report, had said that there were manual scavengers in the national capital even after the Act came into force.
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