Labour Law 2 Project n3d1k

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CHANAKYA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, PATNA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FINAL DRAFT PRESENTED FOR LABOUR LAW- II PUCL v. State of Tamil Nadu (2004)12 SCC 381-Analysis Submitted to :- Dr. S.C.Roy Submitted by :- Priya Jha Roll No. 1419 3rd Year, 5th Semester, B.B.A.LL.B. (Hons.) Date:- November 2017.

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ACKNOWLEGEMENT Writing a project has one of the most significant academic challenges I have ever faced. Any attempt at any level can't be satisfactorily completed without the and guidance of well experienced people. Gratitude is a noble response of one’s soul to kindness or help generously rendered by another and its acknowledgement is the duty and joy. I am overwhelmed in all humbleness and gratefulness to acknowledge our depth to all those who have helped us to put these ideas, well above the level of simplicity and into something concrete effectively and moreover on time. My first obligation, irredeemable by the verbal expression, is to our subject teacher Dr. S.C.Roy has given me his valuable help in a myriad way from the start to till the end. I thank him for his , with which I was able to perform this project work. I would like to extend my thanks to my parents for their encouragement and selfless , given to me at critical junctures during the making to this project. They lent their valuable suggestions, guidance and encouragement whenever I needed a helping hand. Last but not the least, I would like to thank my friends who helped a lot in gathering different information, collecting data and guiding each other from time to time in making this project. They have been very kind and patient while suggesting me the outlines of the project. Priya Jha 5th semester

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Number

TITLE Introduction

4

Characteristics Of The Bonded Labour System

7-8

Fact Summary Of The Case Law

9

Initiatives Of The National Human Rights Commission

10-11

Bonded Labour In India

12-15

Analysis : Forced Labour And Policy Options

16-17

The Reality

18-19

Conclusion

20

Bibliography

21

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INTRODUCTION Bonded labour - or debt bondage - is probably the least known form of slavery today, and yet it is the most widely used method of enslaving people. A person becomes a bonded labourer when their labour is demanded as a means of repayment for a loan. The person is then tricked or trapped into working for very little or no pay.

Bonded Labour as defined under the Bonded Labour (Abolition) Act, 1976 is a system of forced or partly forced labour in pursuance of an agreement by the debtor with the creditor (Bonded Labour (Abolition) Act, 1976, §2(g)): i) For service without wages or with wages less than the market wage normally paid for the same or similar labour in the locality ii) Forfeiting the freedom of alternative livelihood for a specified or an unspecified period iii) Forfeiting the freedom to movement throughout the territory of India iv) Forfeiting the right to appropriate or sell property or labour or outcome of the product of labour at market value.

The said agreement is entered into for one or more of the following reasons: a) As a consideration of an advance obtained by him or by any of his lineal ascendants or descendants (whether or not such advance is evidenced by any document) and in consideration of the interest, if any, due on such advance, or b) As a customary or social obligation, or c) As an obligation devolving on him by succession, or d) As a consideration for any economic consideration received by him or by any of his lineal ascendants or descendants, or e) By reason of his birth in any particular caste or community.

Bonded labour is prohibited in India by law vide Articles 21 and 23 of the Constitution. A specific law to prohibit the practice was legislated only in 1976 known as the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act. With the commencement of the Act the following consequences followed: bonded labourers stand freed and discharged from any obligation to render to bonded labour. All customs, traditions, contracts, agreements or instruments by virtue of which a person or any member of family dependent on such person is required to render

Page |5 bonded labour shall be void. Every obligation of bonded labourer to repay any bonded debt shall be deemed to have been extinguished. No suit or any other proceeding shall lie in any Civil Court or any other authority for recovery of any bonded debt.

Despite the statutory prohibition, bonded labour is widely practiced. The worst affected are the children and women particularly those from the Dalit community. The legal framework against bonded labour provided in the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976 is ed by other legislations like the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970; the Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979; the Minimum Wages Act, 1948.

Bonded labour in the farming sector is mostly due to caste based prejudices practiced against the Dalit communities and due to the absence of a proper land reform policy. Instead to end the practice, what is required is strict implementation of labour laws in India. Other than this, the State Government should dovetail the Centrally Sponsored Scheme for rehabilitation of bonded labourers with other ongoing poverty alleviation schemes such as Swarna Jyanti Gram Swaraj Rozgar Yojana (SJGSRY), Special Component Plan for Scheduled Castes, Tribal Sub Plans, etc. Preventive efforts must recognize the social dimensions of bondage, and thereby address it through public sensitization and rights awareness, adult literacy, organizing workers, income generation and vocational skills development. The strategies to eliminate bonded labour need to go beyond the symptoms to address the root causes. The multifaceted and deeply rooted nature of those causes requires an integrated and long term strategy.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: The researcher has used doctrinal method in her research, that is, extensive use of literary sources and materials. The researcher mainly uses secondary sources to provide substance to the research analysis. The researcher has also put down immense effort in order to understand the and concepts related to the subject which enriched the study to a great extent. In some cases, the researcher shall be bound to extract materials directly from the literary work of certain authors which the researcher intend to adequately cite and notify in due course of time. “Doctrinal research or traditional research involves analysis of case laws, arranging, ordering and systematizing legal prepositions and study of legal institutions, but it does more

Page |6 – it creates law and its major tools through legal reasoning or rational deductions. In the opinion of Boomin, this kind of research represents more a practical regulative ideal of how the judicial process ought to be conceived by the judiciary than a theoretical analysis of its actual structure and functioning”.

RESEARCH PROBLEM 1. What are the conditions of migrant bonded labourers in India? 2. What are the various social security schemes related to them?

HYPOTHESIS 1. There are a lot of social schemes related to migrant bonded labourers which are not properly implemented.

SOURCES OF DATA: The following sources of data have been used in the completion of this project: 

Secondary Sources: Articles, Books, Websites.

SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS: Though this is an immense project and pages can be written over the topic, but due to monetary and time concerns I could not deal with the topic in greater detail.

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Characteristics of the Bonded Labour System Bonded labour in India is characterised by certain distinct and unique features:

i) It is an indicator of traditional social relations

A sketch of bonded labourers on the factor of caste indicates the system as a vestige of social relations since the majority of the bonded labourers are either Dalits or Tribals as compared to the of the other social categories1. So in pursuance of any customary or social obligation or by reason of being born in any particular caste or community, a person may become a labour of service to the creditor for a specified or unspecified period of time, either with or without wages or for nominal wages.

ii) Debt as a role player

The pivotal role player in bonded labour is played by debt as it facilitates the creditor/owner to keep the debtors/workers in captivity. Since complete repayment of money borrowed to meet daily (For the majority of rural population who earn a living through agriculture, finding a regular employment (due to non payment of proper wages and drought) is impossible leading to critical poverty thus, making them vulnerable to fall under the grip of the controlling rural elite) or exceptional emergency expenses cannot always be materialized, the debtor agrees to repay the debt through the labour of either himself or any of his family thus paving way for the enslavement to begin2. A deeper understanding of the socio economic realities of the rural India depict that the control over land and all its produce lies with the 5 elite upper caste leaving minimal for the dregs. A member of the lower caste would have no alternative than working for the controlling elite (Malik) leaving it quite natural for them to incur debts (Kamiauti).

When a person incurs a debt, he need not always end up being a bonded labourer, instead he would mortgage the labour any or all of his family in lieu of the incurred debt. Also more than one member of the family could incur debts from the same creditor thus leading to 1

2

C. L. Katial, “Social Security in India,” India in 1951, India Information Services, 1952.

Dreze, Jean and Amartya Sen. 2002. “Democratic Practice and Social Inequality in India.” Journal of Asian and African Studies 37(2): 6-37.

Page |8 the entire family working for him. This may run for generations together and become an inherited family debt. Inevitably such a phenomenon leads to child labour or prostitution too. For instance, the Chukri System of West Bengal where the woman of the family is forced into illegal flesh trade in order to pay off the debts she incurred. She works without pay for a year or for a more longer period without pay till the debt to the brothel owner (money given to meet the expenses of food, apparel, make up amongst others), in other words remains enslaved to her creditor.

iii) Livelihood

The primary effect of debt bondage is the complete inability of the worker to amass minimum capital. Due to the unsettled debt his negotiating power is almost nonexistent and the remuneration that he receives remains bare minimum which would lead him to be completely ensnared in the vicious circle over a period of time3. Working times, freedom of movement as well as work atmosphere and conditions would become extremely taxing leaving him and his family completely hapless with no hope of freedom . One would at the juncture understand that the distinction between bonded labour and forced labour is inversely proportional to the debt amount and becomes blurred with the farcical increase of the debt amount.

3

International Standard Classification of Occupations, ISCO-08 (Geneva). 2012

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Fact Summary The plight of migrant bonded labourers from the State of Tamil Nadu, who were being subjected to exploitation in the State of Madhya Pradesh, was originally brought to the notice of the Supreme Court (SC) through this petition. Later the scope of the petition was expanded so as to cover the problems relating to the bonded labourers in all States and Union Territories in the country. The SC vide Order dated 11-5-1997 asked the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to take over the monitoring of the implementation of the directions of the SC and that of the provisions of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976 (the Act). An Action-taken-Report filed by the NHRC was considered by the Court. After going through the detailed report of the Expert Group, responses to it by the Government and that of the Amicus Curiae, and the various Affidavits on record, the SC arrived at the conclusion that the major issue that is to be solved is the aspects relating to rehabilitation of bonded labourers. Once the bonded labourers are identified and released, they have to be rehabilitated forthwith. The SC stated that it was a reality that the rehabilitation and related aspects of bonded labourers was not given adequate consideration till now. Considering the vitality of rehabilitation issue in the endeavour to abolish bonded labour the SC issued inter alia the following directions to all States and Union Territories: 

- Submit their status report in the form prescribed by NHRC every six months.



- Constitute Vigilance Committees at the District and Sub-Divisional levels in accordance with Section 13 of the Bonded Labour Act, within a period of six months the date of the order.



- Make proper arrangements for rehabilitating released bonded labourers on landbased basis or non-land basis or skilled/craft based basis depending upon the choice of bonded labour and his/her inclination and past experience. Philanthropic organizations or NGOs may be identified with proven track record and good reputation with basic facilities for such rehabilitation.



- Sensitize the District Magistrate and other statutory authorities/committees in respect of their duties under the Bonded Labour Act.

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Initiatives of the National Human Rights Commission The Supreme Court in the Writ Petition (No. 3922/1985) – Public Union for Civil Liberties Vs State of Tamil Nadu & Others – requested the NHRC in 1997 to get involved in the monitoring of the implementation of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 19764. Since then, the NHRC has been focusing on States where bonded labour is prevalent. During 2011, it took stock of the situation and the following charter of activities have been taken up by the Commission on the issue of Bonded Labour: 1. Constitution of Core Group on Bonded Labour: A Core Group on Bonded Labour has been constituted by the Commission who will advise in chalking out and suggesting strategies to the State/Central Government for elimination of bonded labour in the country. The last meeting of the Core Group took place on 10/1/2012. 2. Organized a National Level Seminar: The Commission organized a National level Seminar on elimination of bonded labour system on 30/9/2011 at IIC, New Delhi. The Officers from State Government/UTs participated in the seminar. 3. Workshops conducted in Bonded Labour prone States: The Commission altogether has organized five Workshops on Elimination of Bonded and Child Labour system. These have been organized in collaboration with the State Governments to sensitize District Magistrates, Sub Divisional Magistrates, SSPs and officers from the Labour Department. These Workshops were held at Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. 4. NHRC team to carry out surprise visits to bonded labour prone areas: Teams have been constituted in NHRC to carry out surprise visits to bonded labour prone areas. The team consists of officers from the Investigation and Law Divisions of the Commission5. Recently, one team conducted a surprise visit in Ghaziabad, Bhagpat, Meerut and Bulandshahar Districts of Uttar Pradesh. Due to off season at brick-kilns, no workers were found. 5. Development of an instructional manual on Bonded Labour: As of now, the Commission has brought out a booklet under the Know Your rights series on Bonded Labour which is being disseminated to all concerned. 4 5

Breman, Jan. 2007. Labour Bondage in West India: From Past to Present. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Ibid

P a g e | 11 6. Revised format for Monitoring of Bonded Labour in States: A new format has been devised for compiling bi-annually status from States/UTs regarding identification, release and rehabilitation of bonded labourers. However, almost all the States/UTs are sending the information in old format only. This issue is being taken up with the Chief Secretaries of the State Governments to send the information as per the revised format.

7. Review existing schemes of the Central and State Governments on Bonded Labour: The Commission has taken up the issue with the Ministry of Labour and Employment. It has conveyed that they have adopted an integrated convergence based approach to prevent bonded labour with the help of ILO6. Recently, Justice Shri B.C. Patel held a meeting with the Director General in the Ministry of Labour & Employment to discuss increase in the rehabilitation grant under the centrally sponsored scheme.

8. Recommendation to State Government for organizing orientation training programme in each bonded labour prone district: The Commission has written to all the Chief Secretaries of the State Government /UTs for organizing orientation training programmes for DMs/DSMs/SSPs and also for the field functionaries of labour law enforcement.

9. Recommending States to constitute a State Level Monitoring and Coordination Committees under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary with Secretaries to Government of various departments as . The committee will also convene meetings to take stock of bonded labour situation in their States and will apprise the Commission every six months.

6

International Labour Organization. 2005. A Global Alliance Against Forced Labour. In International Labour Conference 93rd Session. Geneva: ILO. http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/relm/ilc/ilc93/pdf/rep-i-b.pdf.

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Bonded Labour in India

Bonded labour, which is characterized by a long-term relationship between employer and employee, is usually solidified through a loan, and is embedded intricately in India’s socioeconomic culture—a culture that is a product of class relations, a colonial history, and persistent poverty among many citizens7. Also known as debt bondage, bonded labour is a specific form of forced labour in which compulsion into servitude is derived from debt. Categorized and examined in the scholarly literature as a type of forced labour, bonded labour entails constraints on the conditions and duration of work by an individual. Not all bonded labour is forced, but most forced labour practices, whether they involve children or adults, are of a bonded nature. Bonded labour is most prevalent in rural areas where the agricultural industry relies on contracted, often migrant labourers. However, urban areas also provide fertile ground for long-term bondage. Characterized by a creditor-debtor relationship that a labourer often es on to his family , bonded labour is typically of an indefinite duration and involves illegal contractual stipulations. Contracts deny an individual the basic right to choose his or her employer, or to negotiate the of his or her contract. Bonded labour contracts are not purely economic; in India, they are reinforced by custom or coercion in many sectors such as the agricultural, silk, mining, match production, and brick kiln industries, among others. Researchers of bonded labour in India seek to understand its long-standing practices through an examination of contemporary forms of labour coercion, their origins and relationships to poverty and inequality, and implications for policymaking8. Child labour, agricultural debt bondage, and bonded migrant labour are persistent forms of modern slavery that fall under the Indian constitutional definition of forced labour. While child labour and bonded labour in India are typically addressed separately in the literature, many researchers

Bardhan, Pranab K. 1983. “Labor-Tying in a Poor Agrarian Economy: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 98(3): 501-514. 8 http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/India_report_final.pdf 7

P a g e | 13 focus on the causes and consequences of pervasive child labour in the world’s largest democracy. Child labourers face major health and physical risks: they work long hours and are required to perform tasks for which they are physically and developmentally unprepared. Child labour is deeply entrenched as a common practice in many sectors and states, due in part to India’s economic emphasis on exports in recent years9. According to a current estimate, a quarter of Indian children ages six to fourteen—roughly two hundred million children—are working, and a third of the remaining seventy-five percent are bonded labourers. The largest single employer of children in India is the agricultural sector where an estimated twenty-five million children are employed; and the second largest employer of Indian children is the service sector where children work in hotels and as household maids. An additional five million Indian children are employed in other labour-intensive industries.

9

Majumdar, Manabi. 2001. “Child Labour as a Human Security Problem: Evidence from India.” Oxford Development Studies 29(3): 279-304.

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Origins and Causes of India’s Bonded Labour Problem Bonded labour stems from a variety of causes, which are highly debated in the literature: an ingrained legacy of caste-based discrimination, vast poverty and inequality, an inadequate education system, unjust social relations, and the government’s unwillingness to alter the status quo all exemplify a few such causes10. Additionally, India’s colonial background and caste system have made it difficult to delineate the history of labourers’ “unfreedom,” as termed by several authors, and to understand legal and actual differentiations between slavery under British rule and debt bondage and child labour today. There are many cultural reasons for the persistence of child labour in India. An expectation that children should contribute to the socioeconomic survival of the family and community, as well as the existence of large families, land scarcity, and inadequate enforcement of labour laws are contributing factors to this problem. In urban areas, following the migration of families to overpopulated cities, the disintegration of such families due to alcoholism and unemployment often results in a proliferation of children living on the street, becoming labourers, and entering into prostitution.

Legal Restrictions and Enforcement The domestic legal treatment of individual labour rights, which are clearly articulated but seldom enforced, reflects India’s blurry history with slavery. Article 23 of the 1949 Constitution of India outlaws both the trafficking of human beings and forced labour, but the legislation defining and banning bonded labour was only approved by Parliament in 1976. The Bonded Labour System Abolition Act of 1976 stipulates that the monitoring of labour violations and their enforcement are responsibilities of state governments. The Indian government has demonstrated a severe lack of will to implement this ban on bonded labour. Such pervasive non-enforcement may be attributed to several factors, including government apathy, caste bias, corruption, a lack of ability, and inadequate enforcement personnel. The Supreme Court of India has interpreted bonded labour as the payment of wages that are below the prevailing market wage or the legal minimum wage. As a response to complaints of human rights violations, the Court relies on Public Interest Law (PIL) whereby citizens are able to petition India’s courts if they believe their rights, or the rights of their

10

Khan, Ali. 2001. “The Dignity of Labor.” Columbia Human Rights Law Review 32(2): 289-382.

P a g e | 15 fellow citizens, are being denied. The Supreme Court’s two major examinations of child labour in 1991 and 1997 resulted in PIL rulings that emphasized the role of poverty, and promoted children’s education11. However, the Court refused to ban child labour outright, citing its role as a judicial and not a legislative body. The Indian government has not yet actively linked economic development to human rights violations at work. A recent government measure to raise the minimum wage for children exemplifies a lagging commitment to the eradication of child labour in particular, by essentially legitimizing children’s work obligations and conditions. Nevertheless, the decision of the Supreme Court to establish a rehabilitation and welfare program for working children, in addition to the efforts of the National Human Rights Commission, have been instrumental in sensitizing policymakers to the serious problem of child labour12.

11

http://jlsr.thelawbrigade.com/wp-content/s/2016/04/Indranali-Sen.pdf

12

Pandhe, M.K., ed. 1979. Child Labour in India: Indian Institute for Regional Development Studies.

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Analysis: Forced Labour and Policy Options Interpretations of bonded child labour as an ingrained consequence of poverty, an impediment to genuine democracy and development, and a caste-based practice reinforced by deep-seated biases, inform the range of policy recommendations. The challenge of effective policy design echoes the paradox of India’s steady rise as an economic and technological powerhouse, despite the persistence of poverty and underdevelopment. Development and human rights-minded analyses of child labour as an economic phenomenon dominate the literature concerned with policy solutions13. Economic-based research on bonded labour in India centres on the links between fertility, poverty, and access to education, while bearing in mind the policy options available to the government. The struggle emerges in the debate—which receives limited official policy attention— over whether to enforce the ban on child labour, attempt to curb it, or maintain the status quo. Economists attribute the persistence of bonded labour and child labour to a variety of factors: long-standing caste-based discrimination, inequality, a lack of educational opportunities, high fertility levels among poor Indians—overall, to poverty as a self-reinforcing cycle. Others challenge the position that child labour will be eradicated after poverty has been eliminated. As labour—the engine of the country’s increasing technological sophistication and growth— drives India toward a more equitable future, the state may gradually move away from its traditional roots and move in the direction of ensuring human rights protections for all citizens. Some analysts argue that poverty alleviation is the government’s most promising approach to the eradication of bonded child labour, given the self-perpetuating patterns of illiteracy, inferior or nonexistent education, and children’s prevalent work participation. Welfare programs and the provision of incentives for families not to send their children to work are components of suggested strategies to fight child labour. Other researchers disagree with the notion that the link between poverty and child labour is inevitable; their approach highlights the “human security” approach to economic and social development, in which case ensuring the rights of the child is a social and state responsibility. The case for compulsory primary education, made prolifically by Myron Weiner, suggests that change must come from within the Indian legal framework, and must be Kanbargi, Ramesh and P.M. Kulkarni. 1991. “Child Work, Schooling and Fertility in Rural Karnataka, India.” In Child Labour in the Indian Subcontinent: Dimensions and Implications, edited by R. Kanbargi. Delhi: Sage Publications India. 13

P a g e | 17 ed by official attitudes, in order to overcome profound class divisions and to achieve the government’s broader free-market goals. Efforts to make primary education compulsory would require an interpretation of education as not only a constitutional principle, but also as a fundamental right enforced by the state. This perspective views education as the main alternative to lifelong labour for all Indians, and as a building block in the construction of a diverse, educated human resource base capable of ing a more open and competitive economy. Exploitation of children working in dangerous conditions not only results in constraints on a child’s health and development, but also solidifies his or her fate as an unskilled, lowpaid worker. A greater focus on female education would precipitate a decline in both fertility—seen as a self-reinforcing cause and effect of child labour—and in children’s work participation. The debate amongst analysts of the economics of forced labour, particularly of bonded working children, revolves around whether work can be eradicated completely—or whether current labour conditions in India are acceptable given the economic demands of underdevelopment14. The suggestion has also been posited that “learn and earn” policies, which combine work and school, may be feasible. For the most part, the government fails to enforce extant laws. Whether child labour should and can be completely outlawed and the ban enforced, or whether the economic system in India can realistically allow for all children to attend school, have remained at the crux of the debate for some time.

14

http://ncib.in/pdf/ncib_pdf/Labour%20Act.pdf

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The Reality The Bonded Labour Abolition Act, 1976is undoubtedly a very comprehensive law as it provides for freedom of bonded labourers, re empower them and at the same time provides for prosecution of offenders. As much promising and effective the Act appears to be, the reality does not shine bright. On a general note, this celebrated legislation has created a framework for elimination of bonded labour, but the Supreme Court of India (Bandhua Mukti Morcha v Union of India, 1984, Neerja Chaudhary v State of Madhya Pradesh, 1984, P. Sivaswamy v State of Andhra Pradesh, 1988, T. Chakkalackal v State of Bihar and Ors, 1993, People’s Union for Civil Liberties and Ors v State of Tamil Nadu and Ors 1994(interim order),2004 & 2013 and the National Human Rights Commission (National Human Rights Commission, Annual Report 1999 – 2000) have time and again stated clearly that the implementation of this legislation by the States has been unsuccessful.

1. Non recognition of newer forms of bonded labour The Bonded Labour Abolition Act 1976 including its amendment in 1985 stills covers the traditional forms of bonded labour existing in the feudal agricultural system of India thus remaining far from reality15. India now has evolved “neo-bondage” mechanisms which have been devised so as to remain outside the ambit of the Act. Neo bondage mechanism or attached labour has stark differences as compared to traditional bondage mechanisms such as its time bound nature and absence of coercion. The attached labour system is based on a contract that is concluded through a mutual intermediary. It provides mutual benefit of the employer and the labourer unlike the bonded labour which was focused only on benefit of the employer. Moreover, it is time bound and the labourer is free to work elsewhere after giving due priority to his present employer and the wages are at par with the prevalent wages for the same category of work in the area. There is wage advance which ensures income security and is not considered as a debt as the labourer is not ready to work until he is paid an advance. Thus in these cases neither party treats the labour done as bonded and remains complacent with the conditions.

Weiner, Myron. 1996. “Child Labour in India: Putting Compulsory Primary Education on the Political Agenda.” Economic and Political Weekly. 15

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2. Non availability of definitive figure of bonded labourers The main impediments to the successful implementation of the legislation are then on availability of definitive figure of bonded labourers and non co-operation on the part of State Governments. It is quite shocking to realize that most of the states in India have absolutely denied the existence of bonded labour within its jurisdiction .The necessary consequence of this is the non - conducting of periodic surveys. This has made it impossible to arrive at a definitive figure and thus understand the magnitude of the situation. The first alternative national level survey was carried out by the Gandhi Peace Foundation in association with the V.V.Giri National Institute in 1978-79 and has been criticized for the non scientific methodology adopted as a result of which its findings were not acceptable to the Government. The states which acknowledged the presence of bonded labour showed initial enthusiasm in identification of bonded labourers which, slowed down over a period of time and the net result is that the available figure relates to one time effort only.

3. Judicial Intervention Despite the intervention by judiciary the State governments have exhibited a severe absence of will in complying with the requirements of the Act. The Supreme Court had entrusted the National Human Rights Commission the responsibility to monitor the implementation of the Act vide order dated 11.05.1997 in pursuance of which an Expert Group was constituted by the NHRC which submitted the Action Taken Report to the Supreme Court on 06.06.2001. Following this, the apex court in (PUCL v State of Tamil Nadu and Ors 2004) gave express direction that all states and union territories should submit the NHRC prescribed status report on bonded labour within six months. The submitted reports by States were hardly unsatisfactory and had to be returned for clarification and additional information. The National Human Rights Commission has time and again clarified that the approach of the states towards implementation of the legislation remains hardly satisfactory. It clearly states that despite financial assistance of an amount of two lacs per district every three years to conduct surveys, it has been done only in few selected areas of states which have actually conducted the survey. Moreover there have been cases where the reported cases of bonded labour have been dropped by the district state officials without proper reasons (Public Union for Civil Liberties and Ors v State of Tamil Nadu and Ors 2013).

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Conclusion Over the last few decades the entire world has been open to globalization and liberalization and become economically empowered. India as an emerging global power also paces forward in its economic growth in the hope of gaining recognition amongst the global powerful. In this journey, it is still facing stumbling blocks in the social and economic problems such as bonded labour which the authorities choose to cover rather than tackle. The much acclaimed transformation that the country has made has failed to promote changes in this matter. Bonded labour has sustained all these changes undergone by the country because of its hierarchical division of the social system coupled with persistent poverty which has consciously or unconsciously made the people of India remain attuned to this evil without questioning it. In addition to this, the shameful active or ive connivance of the implementing authorities and the Governments has led to the failure of the legislation enacted to address the problem. Thus it may safely be said the short term dream of eradicating the evil of bonded labour is indeed distant. India as an emerging global power must not be forgetful of the fact that as long as the most vulnerable population is permitted to be severely and fiercely exploited economically; she will be deficient of the moral authority to act on the global front.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books Referred 

Saharay H.K. (Dr.), Textbook on Labour and Industrial Law, 5th Edition 2011, Universal Law Publishing Co. Ltd.

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Misra Surya Narayan, Labour and Industrial Laws, 24th Edition 2008, Central Law Publications

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Goswami V.G. (Dr.), Labour and Industrial Laws, 8th edition 2004, Central Law Agency.

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The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970’; Universal Law Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 2011.

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Pai GB, Labour Law in India, Volume-I, Butterworths India

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Pai GB, Labour Law in India, Volume-II, Butterworths India

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Padhi P.K., Labour and Industrial Laws, 2nd Edition, PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd.

Websites 

http://www.legalserviceindia.com/article/l12-A-Study-of-Contract-Labour(Regulation-and-Abolition)-Act,-1970.html

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http://jlsr.thelawbrigade.com/wp-content/s/2016/04/Indranali-Sen.pdf

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http://aioe.in/html/IndustrialRelations.pdf

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http://ncib.in/pdf/ncib_pdf/Labour%20Act.pdf