Main features of the directions of Supreme Court in their Judgment as on 10th December 1996

On 10th December 1996 in Writ Petition (Civil) No.465/1986 on MC Mehta verses state of Tamil Nadu the Supreme Court of India, gave certain directions on the issue of elimination of child labour. The main features of judgment are as under:

• Survey for identification of working children;
• Withdrawal of children working in hazardous industry and ensuring their education in appropriate institutions;
• Contribution @ Rs.20,000/- per child to be paid by the offending employers of children to a welfare fund to be established for this purpose;
• Employment to one adult member of the family of the child so withdrawn from work and it that is not possible a contribution of Rs.5,000/- to the welfare fund to be made by the State Government;
• Financial assistance to the families of the children so withdrawn to be paid -out of the interest earnings on the corpus of Rs.20,000/25,000 deposited in the welfare fund as long as the child is actually sent to the schools;
• 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 direction of the Hon’ble Supreme Court is being monitored by the Ministry of Labour and compliance of the directions have been reported in the form of Affidavits on 05.12.97, 21.12.1999, 04.12.2000, 04.07.2001 and 04-12-2003 to the Hon’ble Court on the basis of the information received from the State/UT Governments.

Enforcement Figures on Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986 for the last five years

Year	Inspections	Violations	Prosecutions	Convictions
2009	328077	8709	5633	1489
2010	255176	11182	4570	1536
2011	150771	14411	6011	976
2012	164453	12019	5018	1144
2013	174994	8859	3486	1041
Total	1073471	55180	24718	6186