Chennai: The Madras High Court on Tuesday suggested to the civic authorities to take stringent criminal action against the heads of the Corporation or Municipality concerned if a worker, engaged in manual cleaning of sewers and septic tanks, died of asphyxiation.
Taking serious view of deaths occurring due to manual scavenging across the State, the first bench of Chief Justice Sandib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy gave the suggestion, when the public interest writ petition from Safai Karamchari Andolan came up for further hearing.
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The petitioner alleged that as many as 14 persons had died when they entered into the septic tanks for purpose of cleaning, in 2020. Six more had died till filing of the petition this year, he added.
"Despite passing orders and filing detailed status reports till December 2019, the practice still prevails and people are dying in pits," the judges noted.
Expressing its disappointment at the spate of manual scavenging accidents occurring constantly, the bench said that it is high time that the heads of corporations and municipalities are held personally liable for the deaths occurring within their jurisdictions and it must be made clear to them by the appropriate authorities.