Elimination of Child Labour - Supreme Court

Directions of the Supreme Court on the Issue of Elimination of Child Labour

In a landmark judgment on 10 December 1996, in the case of MC Mehta v State of Tamil Nadu (1996) 6 SCC 756 [Writ Petition (Civil) No. 465/1986], the Supreme Court of India gave certain directions on the issue of elimination of child labour. The main features of the judgment are as under:

1. Survey for identification of working children;
2. Withdrawal of children working in hazardous industry and ensuring their education in appropriate institutions;
3. Contribution at the rate of Rs 20,000 per child to be paid by the offending employers of children to a welfare fund to be established for this purpose;
4. Employment to one adult member of the family of the child so withdrawn from work and if that is not possible a contribution of Rs 5,000 to the welfare fund to be made by the State Government;
5. Financial assistance to the families of the children so withdrawn to be paid out of the interest earnings on the corpus of Rs 20,000/25,000 deposited in the welfare fund, as long as the child is actually sent to a school; and
6. Regulating hours of work for children working in non-hazardous occupations so that their working hours do not exceed six hours per day and education for at least two hours is ensured. The entire expenditure on education is to be borne by the concerned employer.

The implementation of the directions of the Hon'ble Supreme Court is being monitored by the Ministry of Labour and Employment and compliance with the directions has been reported in the form of affidavits on 5 December 1997, 21 December 1999, 4 December 2000, 4 July 2001 and 4 December 2003, to the Hon'ble Supreme Court on the basis of the information received from the State Governments/Union Territories.

The Government is committed to eliminate child labour in all its forms and is moving in this direction in a targeted manner.