NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday expressed deep anguish over the prevailing inhuman practice of hand-pulled rickshaws ferrying visitors in the eco-sensitive and automobile-free Matheran hill station in Maharashtra’s Western Ghats and said this belittles India’s march towards a developing country and its Constitution which promises social and economic justice.A bench of Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justices K Vinod Chandran and N V Anjaria recalled a 45-year-old judgment in the Azad Rickshaw Pullers Association case, in which Supreme Court had come to the rescue of exploited cycle-rickshaw pullers and framed a scheme for ensuring their dignity and livelihood, and said that it is the duty of the Maharashtra govt to frame a scheme within six months to provide e-rickshaws to persons engaged in ferrying tourists on hand-pulled rickshaws.Dictating the judgment in court for the bench, CJI Gavai said, “It is really unfortunate that even after 45 years of the SC judgment on cycle-rickshaw pullers of Punjab, the inhuman practice of one human being ferrying another on hand-pulled rickshaws is prevalent (in Matheran).”“Are we alive to the social and economic justice of every human being as mandated by the Constitution? Unfortunately, the answer is in the negative. Continuing such inhuman practices even after 75 years of the Constitution would be akin to betraying the promise ‘We the People’ made to all citizens – social and economic justice,” he said.To ensure social and economic justice, the state must frame a scheme for the people who hand-pull rickshaws so that they earn their livelihood with dignity, the bench said and asked the Maharashtra govt to take a leaf out of the e-rickshaw scheme which is working well to empower tribal women around the Sardar Patel statue at Gujarat’s Sardar Sarovar dam.The CJI said that the govt could purchase e-rickshaws for Matheran and rent them out only to those who hand-pull rickshaws to rehabilitate them.
