Judgment

DESAI, J.:- One. Mukesh Advani, Advocate practising in-this Court addressed a letter to one of the Judges of this Court on September 23, 1982 annexing thereto a cutting from the Indian Express dated September 14, 1982 depicting the horrid plight of the bonded labour working in stone quarries at Raisen in Madhya Pradesh.

2. Broadly stated the allegations were that the contractors who operate the mines recruit labour force from Tamilnadu. Everyone recruited to work was paid roughly an advance of Rs, 1,000/- and then brought to work at the mines. This amount of Rs. 1,000/- is reimbursable by deductions spread over from month to month from the wages payable to the bonded labourers, but the method of accounting is so manipulated that the debt of Rs. 1,000/- is never wiped out, and on the contrary it increases by geometrical proportion. The workman goes deeper into the mire of indebtedness with the result that the octopus hold of the contractor becomes all enveloping and the workman becomes a bonded labour. The working conditions, to say the least, were of the 18th century vintage. There is no weekly holiday. Sanitary conditions are in deplorable state. During the rainy season the operation of the mines is shut off and consequently the workmen are not paid wages. Not a single legislation enacted for the welfare of labour is implemented or respected. No workman can leave the employment until the entire debt is repaid which is beyond the reach of the workman. The only way to escape the clutches of the contractor is for the workman to change the master who by a paper advance pays off the former contractor and the cycle is repeated. It was alleged that the functionaries of the Labour Department of the Centre and the State by sheer inaction if not active. collaboration on their part help in exploitation of the labour. It was specifically alleged that in the absence of a notification specifying minimum wages for the labour force employed in the mines the payment is paltry and meagre and there is naked and unabashed exploitation of workmen.

3. As part of social action litigation this letter was treated as writ petition under Art. 32 of the Constitution and by the Order dated October 7, 1982 notice was ordered to be issued to the Deputy Commissioner/Collector, Bhopal. The District Judge Bhopal was directed to proceed to the site of stone quarries at Raisen arid ascertain the existence of bonded labour and to submit a detailed report of the working conditions in the mines. A further direction was given that the District Judge may take assistance of Mr. N. K. Singh who had exposed and portrayed the plight of the bonded labour in the Indian Express. The Committee for Implementing Legal Aid Schemes was directed to deposit Rs. 1,000/- with the Registrar of the SC to meet the expenses of the District Judge in carrying out his assignments.

4. Pursuant to the afore-mentioned order, the District Judge submitted a detailed report in which it was pointed out that the labour force recruited from Tamil Nadu had made a complaint on May 24, 1980 to the Secretary, Labour Department, Government of Madhya Pradesh that the quarry contractor (Abdul Rehman was giving inhuman treatement to Tamil labourers working in Surai mines. This complaint was forwarded to the Superintendent of Police, Raisen to enquire into the matter. He submitted a report that 48 workmen from Tamilnadu have been released and they have returned to Tamilnadu. On September 8, 1980 a written report was lodged at Police Station Raisen by seven workmen six of whom were from Tamilnadu, in which it was alleged that the quarry contractor (Hamid Khan) was harassing them by making a claim that each one had to repay Rs. 15,000/- to Rs. 16,000/- towards the advances taken by them. It was not possible to ascertain how this huge amount was worked out. One additional complaint was that the workmen were paid less than what was agreed at the time of recruitment and that whenever a voice of protest was