Judgment :-

Dipak Misra, J.

1. Leave granted in all these Special Leave Petitions.

THE IMPERATIVE PROLOGUE

2. How does a constitutional court respond to a situation when a human problem of great magnitude frescoed on constitutional canvas gets painfully projected with intense sincerity, possibly realizing pain is one of the "sovereign masters of mankind"? How is the Court required to react in law when the workmen are forced to grapple with a colossal predicament of sense of belonging due to a situation created making them feel that they are neither here nor there?

We consider it as an unbearable tragedy faced by the unfortunate employees warranting serious attention of this Court, for some employees have breathed their last due to starvation, constant stress being unable to meet the keen demands of appetite, and the impecuniosity that hampered them to avail timely treatment, and some families have been unwillingly driven to a state of unmeaningful survival - an animal existence - sans proper food, sans clothes and sans real shelter.

It is not because of any natural calamity beyond human control but because two States, namely, State of Jharkhand and State of Bihar deliberately have chosen to create an Everstine catastrophe by their act of abandonment of responsibility to pay despite availing work for some years and thereafter disowning them and nonchalantly shifting the burden to other's shoulder and ultimately arguing in chorus that Jharkhand Hill Area Lift Irrigation Corporation (JHALCO) and Bihar Hill Area Lift Irrigation Corporation (BHALCO) being companies registered under the Companies Act, 1956, it is open to the aggrieved employees or their legal representatives to initiate necessary winding up proceedings to get their dues.

We can only say that the stand and stance so adroitly put forth by both the States are shorn of their constitutional accountability and statutory answerability. In a way, it seems to be orchestrated by some kind of abstruse and unfathomable idea fostered in fertile mind that loves to keep helpless and hapless people in a state of despair where hope dies an unceremonial death or it lives in a state of "Trishanku". It indubitably depicts a startlingly unhappy situation commanding urgent surgical intervention so that the injury does not become malignant.

3. Before we proceed to exposit the facts, regard being had to the questions posed by us, we think it seemly to refer to certain principles laid down by this Court.

4. In Jagdish Saran (Dr) v. Union of India, (1980) 2 SCC 768 it has been stated as under:- "Law, constitutional law, is not an omnipotent abstraction or distant idealization but a principled, yet pragmatic, value- laden and result-oriented, set of propositions applicable to and conditioned by a concrete stage of social development of the nation and aspirational imperatives of the people. India Today - that is the inarticulate major premise of our constitutional law and life."

5. In Chameli Singh and Others v. State of U.P. and Another, (1996) 2 SCC 549 after referring to Article 11(1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966 which laid down that the State parties to the Covenant recognize "the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and for his family including food, clothing, housing and to the continuous improvement of living conditions", the Court opined that the State parties are required to take appropriate action to ensure that the said right is realized.

6. In P.G. Gupta v. State of Gujarat and Others, 1995 Supp. (2) SCC 182 it has been opined that the Preamble to the Constitution says that the people of India having resolved to secure to all its citizens social and economic justice also made it subject to equality of status and opportunity to promote the dignity of the individual in the united and integrated Bharat. Reference was made to Article 37 that declares the rights in Part IV or fundamental law in the governance of the country