Context:

• The Supreme Court has said that migrant workers should not be prosecuted for trying to reach home amid the national lockdown.

• The court passed the order after suo motu taking cognisance of the migrant workers’ exodus. SC order

• A Bench led by Justice Ashok Bhushan directed the Centre and the States to withdraw any complaint or prosecution lodged against migrant labourers, under Section 51 of the Disaster Management Act, (Punishment for obstruction) who had set out on foot from big cities for their native villages to escape starvation, unemployment and disease during the pandemic.

• The court said “society as a whole was moved by their miseries and difficulties”.

• The Bench also ordered the States and the UTs to bring the stranded migrant workers home within the next 15 days.

• It ordered the Railways to provide the States with more Shramik Special trains to transport migrant workers.

 • The Bench directed that counselling centres should be set up to reach out to them and explain the various schemes framed for their rehabilitation and employment.

• The States and UTs were directed to conduct extensive skill-mapping of the returned workers. On High Courts

• In a retort to the government criticism of High Courts running a “parallel government” with their orders on migrants, the Supreme court said that the High Courts, as constitutional courts, were well within their jurisdiction to take cognisance of the violation of fundamental rights of the migrant workers and there is no doubt that those proceedings would proceed.