The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the government to consider a plea by activist Harsh Mander to provide minimum wages to migrant workers, who are facing a difficult situation due to loss of income in view of the countrywide coronavirus lockdown since March 25.
The top court called upon the Union government "to look into such material and take such steps as it finds fit to resolve the issues," including payment of monthly sum to hawkers, rickshaw pullers and others.
A bench of Justices N V Ramana, Sanjay Kishan Kaul and B R Gavai told advocate Prashant Bhushan that the court cannot direct the government to pay certain amounts to migrant workers as it would amount to interfering in finances of the Union government.
"In an unusual situation faced by the country, the court cannot tell the government how it should work and which schemes to implement," the bench said.
Activist Mander, led by advocate Prashant Bhushan, alleged that nearly 90% of migrant workers have not received either ration or cooked meal. He said none of them has been paid a single penny.
Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, said the migrant labourers, staying in shelter home, were given food. He also pointed out Rs 500 per month was transferred to Jan Dhan accounts held by crores of women.
He also said helpline number has been provided to address any issue raised at the ground level.
"Whenever any complaint is received, the authorities are attempting to address it immediately," he said.
Mehta also said around 50,000 NGOs were working shoulder-to-shoulder with governments to provide food and basic necessities to migrant workers, the poor and destitute.
"While thousands of NGOs are doing exemplary social work, some persons' social work is confined to filing PILs," he quipped.
To this, Bhushan retorted that the petitioner can't be expected to feed 15 lakh people.