Sixty-nine-year-old P. Valaiyakka belonging to the Arunthathiyar community is all set to become the first person in the State to receive a compensation of Rs.10 lakh, fixed by the Supreme Court in Safai Karamchari Andholan’s case in 2014, for the death of her son due to asphyxiation while cleaning a septic tank in a residential house in Ramanathapuram Municipality on October 13, 2004.
Replying to a contempt of court application pending before Justice M. Venugopal, Municipal Administration Secretary K. Phanindra Reddy on Monday said a Government Order had been passed on June 30 to pay Rs.10 lakh to the elderly woman from Soorankottai village subject to fulfilment of certain modalities.
According to the petitioner’s counsel R. Karunanithi, the sexagenarian’s son P. Arumugam, serving as a sanitary worker with Ramanathapuram Municipality, cleaned septic tanks in private buildings to earn an additional income. His wife was pregnant when he died. She gave birth to a baby girl after his death and left the child in petitioner’s custody before remarrying.
When the aged petitioner was struggling to bring up the girl child, the Supreme Court on March 27, 2014 directed the Centre and State Governments to identify families of all those who died due to manual scavenging after the enactment of Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993 and pay them a compensation of Rs.10 lakh each.
Hence, Valaiyakka sent representations to the government officials and then filed a writ petition seeking compensation.
Justice R. Mahadevan disposed of her petition with a direction to the officials to consider her request in the light of the Supreme Court directive. Though the government went on appeal, a Division Bench, led by Justice S. Manikumar, dismissed the appeal early this year.
Subsequently, disposing of a petition seeking clarification as to whether the compensation should be paid even if deaths had occurred in private establishments, the Supreme Court on May 10 clarified that the amount should be paid irrespective of the place of occurrence.
Hence, the State had decided to pay Rs.10 lakh to Valaiyakka after deducting an ex gratia of Rs.3 lakh, which was already.
Arumugam’s mother is the first person in the State to benefit from the SC ruling in Safai Karamchari case
