The Telangana High Court on Wednesday dismissed a Public Interest Litigation petition seeking a direction to the State government to provide reservations in allotment of double bedroom houses to backward classes, widows, women living alone, physically challenged persons and others.
The petition was filed by the Community Organisation for People’s Emancipation, where the petitioner stated that GO Ms. No. 10 was issued on October 15, 2015, restricting allotment of double bedroom houses only to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and minorities. The said order was arbitrary and against the principles of natural justice.
A Division Bench headed by Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma dismissed the petition. Meanwhile, the Bench suo motu took up as PIL petition a news report over the death of two persons who were hired to clean a septic tank of an apartment building in Kondapur.
Describing it as an unfortunate incident, the HC said that it was sad that people were being engaged for scavenging work even after enactment of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act 2013.
Referring to an apex court verdict, the HC said that ₹10 lakh should be paid to the kith and kin of the deceased manual scavengers. The Supreme Court also wanted identification of all persons who died while doing scavenging work since 1993.
The issue was not only about payment of compensation to the families of dead scavengers. It must be ascertained whether the State government had carried out any survey of manual scavenging and any rehabilitation measures were initiated, the HC said.
