JUDGMENT

BHAGWATI, J. — The petitioner is an organisation dedicated to the cause of release of bonded labourers in the country. The system of bonded labour has been prevalent in various parts of the country since long prior to the attainment of political freedom and it constitutes an ugly and shameful feature of our national life. This system based on exploitation by a few socially and economically powerful persons trading on the mise and suffering of large numbers of men and holding them in bondage is a relic of a feudal hierarchical society which hypocritically proclaims the divinity of man but treats large masses of people belonging to the lower rungs of the social ladder or economically impoverished segments of society as dirt and chattel. This system under which one person can be bonded to provide labour to another for years and years until an alleged debt is supposed to be wiped out which never seems to happen during the lifetime of the bonded labourer, is totally incompatible with the new egalitarian socio-economic order which we have promised to build and it is not only an affront to basic human dignity but also constitutes gross and revolting violation of constitutional values. The appalling conditions in which bonded labourers live, not as humans but as serfs, recall to the mind the following lines from "Man with the Hoe" which almost seem to have been written with reference to this neglected and forlorn species of Indian humanity :

"Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans

Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground

The emptiness of ages on his face,

And on his back the burden of the world. They are non-beings, exiles of civilization, living a life worst than that of animals, for the animals are at least free to roam about as they like and they can plunder or grab food whenever they are hungry but these out-castes of society are held in bondage, robbed of their freedom and they are consigned to an existence where they have to live either in hovels or under the open sky and be satisfied with whatever little unwholesome food they can manage to get, inadequate though it be to fill their hungry stomachs. Not having any choice, they are driven by poverty and hunger into a life of bondage a dark bottomless pit from which, in a cruel exploitative society, they cannot hope to be rescued.

2. This pernicious practice of bonded labour existed in many States and obviously with the ushering in of independence, it could not be allowed to continue to blight the national life any longer and hence, when we framed our Constitution, we enacted Article 23 of the Constitution which prohibits "traffic in human beings and begar and other, similar forms of forced labour" practised by any one. The system of bonded labour therefore stood prohibited by Article 23 and there could have been no more solemn and effective prohibition than the one enacted in the Constitution in Art. 23. But, it appears that though the Constitution was enacted as far back as 26th Jan., 1950 and many years passed since then, no serious effort was made to give effect to Article 23 and to stamp out the shocking practice of bonded labour. It was only in 1976 that Parliament enacted the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976 providing for the abolition of bonded labour system with a view to preventing the economic and physical exploitation of the weaker sections of the people. But, unfortunately, as subsequent events have shown and that is borne out also by the Report made by the Centre for Rural Development Administration, Indian Institute of Public Administration to the Ministry of Labour, Government of India on Rehabilitation of Bonded Labour in Monghyr District, Bihar", the Report made by the Public Policy and Planning Division of the Indian Institute of Public Administration to the Ministry of Labour, Government of India on "Evaluation Study of Bonded Labour - Rehabilitation Scheme in Tehri-Garhwal, U. P.", the Report of Laxmi Dhar Misra, the Director-General (Labour Welf