Court case(1984) 3 SCC 161

Bandhua Mukti Morcha, an organisation working for the release of bonded labourers, wrote to the Supreme Court that a large number of labourers from Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan were working as bonded labourers in stone quarries at Faridabad, Haryana, in inhuman conditions, without clean water or shelter, and without the protection of the Mines Act or the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976. The Court treated the letter as a writ petition and appointed two advocates and later a Judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court as commissioners to visit the quarries and report. The State of Haryana objected that the petition was not maintainable, that the commissioners' reports were not evidence, and that the workers were not bonded.

Bhagwati J rejected all the preliminary objections. Article 32 gives the Supreme Court power to adopt any procedure appropriate to enforce fundamental rights, including treating letters as petitions and appointing commissions whose reports are prima facie evidence. On the merits, he held that whenever a labourer is shown to be providing forced labour, the Court will presume that he is doing so in consideration of an advance or other economic consideration and is therefore a bonded labourer under the 1976 Act, unless the employer or the State rebuts it. The right to live with human dignity under Article 21 derives its life breath from the Directive Principles, particularly Articles 39(e) and (f), 41 and 42, and includes protection of the health and strength of workers and conditions of work consistent with dignity. The State of Haryana was directed to identify, release and rehabilitate the bonded labourers and to enforce the labour laws, with periodic reports to the Court.