SC: Migrants can’t be made to pay for travel

SYMPATHETIC VIEW Court asks states to give food as workers await transport

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court finally intervened to protect the interests of stranded migrant workers on Thursday, issuing a seven-point interim order that said it was the job of the state to provide them food and transport and that they cannot be charged for their travel, and asking the Union government, represented by solicitor general Tushar Mehta, a volley of questions on the logistics of ferrying workers back home on trains and buses, including the time they have to wait for transport. The court also remarked that no state can refuse to take back migrant workers.

The apex court’s intervention came two days after it took suo motu (on its own) cognisance of the travails of migrant workers, around two months after it seemed to buy Mehta’s contention that there wasn’t a single migrant worker on the roads walking back home, and 12 days after it said it couldn’t prevent migrants from taking to the roads to walk back home or monitor their movements.

“No fare either by train or by bus shall be charged from any migrant workers. The railway