New Delhi: The Supreme court on Wednesday directed all the states to file a compliance report on its order directing them to provide dry rations and adequate amount uniformly to the sex workers identified by NACO.
The bench led by Justice L Nageswara Rao was hearing a plea seeking relief for the sex workers as they also have been adversely affected due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the last hearing, the court had directed the states to provide ration and money to the workers and today the court heard the states regarding the steps they have taken.
Uttar Pradesh government sought more time to implement the order completely to which the court expressed disappointment saying that 4 weeks given were enough and not being able to do in the given time shows the incapability of the state.
In the case of Maharashtra, court observed that reports from 8 District collectors have been reviewed and there is no uniformity in the distribution of dry ration. It asked the state to implement the scheme and file a compliance report within 2 weeks.
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Advocate Prashant Bhushan informed the court that in Assam only the sex workers are identified through NACO but apart from that there is no information regarding distribution of ration. Assam's counsel told the court that they are facing several practical difficulties in the implementation to which court said that they have to act faster and implement them. It asked the state to file a compliance report within 2 weeks.
There were certain issues highlighted by the advocates like states not taking data from NACO, states denying presence of sex workers and not giving data on it ,etc. One of the major problem highlighted was that the data exists only for workers below 40 years and not above that.
Court said that they will be passing general directions to the states today and take on individual issues later. It also observed that technicalities have to be avoided, sex workers are starving and it is not acceptable.
