Get Migrants Home in 15 Days, Says SC; Reserves Order for 9 June

Appearing for the Centre, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that at least one crore migrants have returned home.

Centre, states get 15 more days to transport migrants home.

(Photo: PTI)

The Supreme Court on Friday, 5 June, gave the Centre and state governments 15 days’ time to arrange transportation for migrant labourers who wish to return home. The court has now reserved its order in the matter for Tuesday, 9 June.

Appearing for the Centre, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that Railways have run 4,228 ‘Shramik Specials’ till 3 June and at least 57 lakh people have returned home. He also added that 41 lakh people have gone by road, and in total at least one crore migrant labourers have returned to their home towns.

The top also also asked the governments to create employment opportunities for migrants returning home.

“All states will bring on record how they will provide employment and other kind of relief. There should be registration of the migrants,” the court said.

Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain, who was representing the Delhi government, told the court that around 2 lakh workers were still in Delhi.

“They are choosing not to go back. Less than 10,000 workers have expressed desire to go back to their native places,” he said.

Advocate Colin Gonsalves, appearing for migrants, said the registration system for the migrants needs to be simplified.

"Two high courts have made observations on the registration system. It needs to be simplified," Gonsalves said.

With 9,851 new COVID-19 cases in 24-hours, India's case tally reaches 2,26,770, as per the Union Health Ministry. The death toll is at 6,348 with 273 new deaths. As many as 1,09,461 have recovered and 1,10,960 cases are active as of Friday, 5 June.

The total number of positive COVID-19 cases in the world rose to 66,01,349 on Friday, 5 June, according to Johns Hopkins University. India is now the seventh worst-hit country in the world.