The Kerala High Court on Monday declared as unconstitutional the demand for nokkukooli by trade unions or registered headload workers or any person in any form and manner.
Justice Devan Ramachandran, while dealing with a writ petition seeking police protection from the threat of headload workers, observed that the practice of demanding nokkukooli required to be banned.
The court also made it clear that if a police officer of the concerned jurisdiction received any complaint regarding the demand for nokkukooli, the officer should register an FIR under Sections 383 (extortion) and 503 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Amendment
The court also directed the State government to carry out the proposed amendment to the Kerala Headload Workers Act in a time-bound manner. The government had earlier submitted that it was bringing an amendment that would penalise workers who demanded nokkukooli and the worker concerned would be expelled from the welfare board.
The Headload Workers Welfare Board was also directed to devise a method of modernising the workforces and equip the workers with scientific and mechanical support to carry out their duties.
Tech support
The court said that the headload workers must be given technical assistance which would relieve them of carrying heavy loads on their heads or body.
Carrying heavy load on their head or body regularly would cause irreversible musculoskeletal cervical problems. Time had come to modernise the workforce by giving them the technical assistance to do the loading and unloading works, it said.
The court observed that the State needs to recover from the unfortunate reputation of not being so very investor-friendly on account of militant trade unions.
In fact, such reputation had its edifice on the deleterious tendencies such as nokkukooli. Once these tendencies were rooted out, the State would become one of the premier investor-friendly destinations, it said.
