Payment of minimum wages to migrant workers: SC leaves decision to Centre

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it would not get into budgetary or financial domain of the Union government by directing it to pay basic minimum wages to migrant workers during the lockdown period, as demanded in PILs by rights activists Harsh Mander, Swami Agnivesh and others.

Another PIL sought a direction to the state governments to pay minimum wages to self-employed workers like rickshaw pullers, auto-drivers, etc. But a bench of Justices N V Ramana, S K Kaul and B R Gavai wondered how the courts could direct the Centre to give money to states for this purpose/

“Are we experts in such matters? These are elected governments at the states and Centre having a mandate to govern. We are not getting into the issues of financial support and adequacy or inadequacy of funds,” it said.

Appearing for rights activists, advocate Prashant Bhushan cited a study conducted on 11,000 migrant workers and said nearly 90% of them said that they have n