Dear All,
Given below press clipping on Supreme Court concern over non-implementation of construction workers law, forwarded for your information.
Thanks with regards.
Keshav Korgaonkar
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Clipping as under:
The Supreme Court on Monday the 28th February 2011 expressed its concern over non-implementation of law regulating employment of construction workers and indicated it might ask the chief Secretaries of states and Union Terroteries, which have failed to implement the law, to be personally present before it.
A bench headed by Chief Justice S H Kapadia asked the Centre "why it cannot take action against the erring states" over the non-implementation of 1996 law.
"The Centre is not able to do anything. Are you helpless? You are not taking action," the bench, also comprising justices K S Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar, said.
The court said it would pass the order in which it would ask Chief Secretary or the Labour Secretary to be present before it for their failure to implement 15-year old law.
The court was hearing a PIL seeking direction to the governments to implement the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996.
The petition was filed by an NGO, National Campaign Committee for Construction Labour, which alleged that many states including Maharastra, Goa, Nagaland and Chandigadh have failed to implement the law meant to regulate unorganised construction worker.
The Act says the appropriate government has to appoint registering officers and every employer shall register their establishment. Under the law, the building workers are to be given various benefits and in order to enable the workers to avail the benefits, each State has to constitute a State Welfare Board.
The Board shall comprise a chairman nominated by the central government, and such other members, not exceeding 15, may be appointed by the State government. The apex court was anguished that the Centre, which was authorised under the law to issue directions to State governments for setting up of welfare boards, did not exercise its power, which created a roadblock for disbursal of the cess collected for the benefits of workers.
During the earlier hearings, the court had pointed out that even the preliminary step for ensuring that boards are constituted by States have not been taken by the Centre as provided under section 60 of the Act (Building and other Construction Workers Act).