High Court directs DC Cachar to immediately provide ration to sex workers of Silchar during pandemic

May 28: While hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL), the Gauhati High Court passed an interim mandamus directing the Deputy Commissioner, Cachar as well as the Secretary, District Legal Services Authority, Cachar to immediately provide ration to the families of the sex workers in Cachar during the ongoing pandemic.

On 28 May,2021, a bench led by Chief Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice M.R.Pathak of Gauhati High Court directed the Deputy Commissioner, Cachar as well as the Secretary, District Legal Services Authority, Cachar to provide rations to all sex workers of Cachar District as an interim mandamus from today itself. The direction was passed while the court was hearing a plea highlighting the distress faced by sex workers on account of the ongoing pandemic.

This PIL was filed by one Debajit Gupta of Srikona, Silchar. The Deputy Commissioner, Cachar who is also the respondent no 6 of this Public Interest Litigation has informed the bench that these sex workers and their families has already been identified, since a project is being run under the Deputy Commissioner, by the National AIDS Control Organization.

The bench noted that the apex court on 29 September, 2020 passed in Criminal Appeal No. 135 of 2010 (Budhadev Karmaskar –vs- The State of West Bengal & Ors.), observing that sex workers have a right to live with dignity as they are human beings. It had then constituted a committee to look into the conditions of sex workers in the country.

According to NACO, which comes under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, there are more than 8.68 lakh female sex workers in the country, and 62 per cent of the 62,137 transgender persons in 17 states are engaged in sex work. The Bench said that it is an urgent situation, let the above ration be provided to sex workers of Cachar District today itself and matter again put up on 1 June, 2021.