Human trafficking: HC asks senior govt officer to appear over non-registration of placement agencies

The Delhi High Court Thursday asked a senior official of the city government's Labour Department to appear before it for failing to comply with the court's direction to register private placement agencies to check human trafficking.

Justice Siddharth Mridul asked the Delhi government why it was not implementing the court's order passed on September 30, 2014 for regulating the functioning of placement agencies.

Appearing for the NGO, senior advocate H S Phoolka said the court had ordered registration of placement agencies in 2014 but none of the agencies has been registered till date.

Terming the matter as serious, the court sought the presence of the joint secretary concerned on the next date of hearing which is October 30.

The court was hearing a contempt petition by NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan in which it has alleged that there was a "complete wilful disobedience and non-compliance" of the court's 2014 order for regulating the functioning of placement agencies.

When the court asked Delhi government standing counsel Ramesh Singh whether the government has implemented its earlier order, he replied in negative.

In May this year, when the contempt petition was filed, he had told the court the government was not treating the plea as an adversarial litigation and it would place a bill regarding the issue before the legislative assembly within eight weeks.

The plea, filed through advocate Prabhsahay Kaur, has claimed that the court was moved because the labour department had completely failed in implementing the executive order of September 25, 2014 for compulsory registration of private placement agencies providing domestic workers.

The high court had in its 2014 order had asked the government to implement the executive order passed on September 25 at the earliest.

The NGO has also filed a fresh application in the pending contempt petition seeking direction to the authorities to forthwith inspect all placement agencies operating in Delhi and shut down the unregistered and unlicensed ones within six weeks.

It also sought to penalise the unregistered and unlicensed placement agencies and lodge FIR against the people responsible.

The NGO, in its plea, said it seemed the executive order was passed by the government in an attempt to hoodwink the court in closing the proceedings before it and was only intended to remain on paper.

"The non-compliance by the Delhi government is completely in the favour of the human trafficking lobby that is increasing on an unprecedented scale under the comfortable and safe swaddle of unregulated placement agencies," it alleged.

"In the absence of a regulating framework, which acts as a deterrent, placement agencies specifically employ children because they are cheaper to employ and can be easily exploited. Consequently, the phenomenon of trafficking has spread its fangs far and wide into our system, affecting the most vulnerable members of our society i.e. children and women.

"Being unregistered, these placement agencies are outside the net of the authorities concerned and hence, are not answerable to anyone unless apprehended," the plea said.