Covid-19: Did a late-night letter from 20 senior lawyers change SC mind on migrants?

NEW DELHI: Did a late night letter on Monday from 20 renowned advocates of Delhi and Mumbai accusing the Supreme Court of exhibiting symptoms of its Emergency-time mindset help change the court’s reluctance to entertain PILs on the plight of migrant workers to take suo motu cognisance of the crisis and seek response from the Centre and states in 48 hours?

The letter signed by 20 advocates, including P Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, C U Singh, Vikas Singh, Prashant Bhushan, Iqbal Chagla, Aspi Chenoy, Yusuf Muchala and Janak Dwarkadas, said, “As a consequence of the court’s failure to intervene (in March), even though the number of Covid cases were then only a few hundred at the time, the millions of migrant workers were unable to proceed to their hometowns and were compelled to remain in small cramped tenements or rooms or on the pavements, without any employment or livelihood, and even a definite source of food.”

The letter, mailed by senior advocate Indira Jaising who is also a signatory, to the CJI at 10.34 pm on Monday said, “In fact, this enforced stay in cramped quarters only exposed such poor workers to a higher risk of Covid infection. Moreover, the government’s statement has been clearly shown to be contrary to the facts. Several reports suggest that more than 90% of migrant workers did not receive government rations in many states and were suffering from dire food shortage.”

The lawyers alleged that the SC’s failure to intervene at the initial stages when Covid-19 cases were in the hundreds resulted in massive migration of workers in May. “Migrant labourers who were fed up with being virtually incarcerated for the previous six weeks, without employment or wages, decided that they would be better off trying to go back to their homes. Significantly, by this time, the Covid infections in the country had crossed 50,000 and a significant number of these migrant workers were also infected with Covid. Even at this stage, the government initially sought to obstruct their travel/movement on foot or by trucks. Subsequently, the government agreed to their movement by bus and trains (Shramik Specials),” they said.

“When arrangements were made to transport them by road, they were often left at the borders of the receiving states, which at times were unwilling to make any further arrangements for them to let them enter or reach their homes, or provide transport, almost as if this was not one country with a common citizenship. The right to life, liberty and freedom of movement of these hapless poor millions was rendered virtually meaningless in such circumstances,” said the lawyers, who also included Sidharth Luthra, Mohan Katarki, Anand Grover, Santosh Paul, Mahalaxmi Pavani, Mihir Desai, Rajani Iyer, Rajiv Patil, Navroz Seervai, Gayatri Singh and Sanjay Singhvi.