New Delhi, Aug. 6: The Supreme Court today asked the central government to deal within six months the problems being faced by over 30,000 workers in ailing and sick tea gardens across the country by invoking the Tea Act, 1953.

These workers are spread over Bengal, Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

In most cases, the owners had shut down their gardens and abandoned the workers to their fate, counsel Colin Gonsalves said appearing for the International Union of Food which had filed a petition seeking court intervention to address the problems.

A bench, headed by Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia passed the order directing the government to deal with the tea garden problems according to the provisions of the Tea Act. The bench directed the Centre to deal with the problems under Sections 16B, C and E of the Tea Act that entitle it to investigate the affairs of a tea garden and even take it over in case it fails to pay workers’ dues. The government was asked to do this within six months. The tea garden owners owe a hefty Rs 300 crore to the workers.

Under these sections of the Tea Act, the government could also attach the properties of the gardens and sell them to clear the dues of workers.

The NGO had filed the petition in 2004. “Some 100 tea garden workers had died. Their dues such as gratuity and provident fund have not been cleared,” he said. “Most of them lead pitiable lives.” This situation persists, Gonsalves said, despite the existence of a law to deal with this. “The Tea Act, 1953, has adequate statutory safeguards to deal with these problems,” he said. The government only has to implement it.

The CJI refused to keep the petition pending as he is in a hurry to clear backlog of cases even at the highest level — estimated to be over 50,000 in the Supreme Court alone at last count. “We have no space. At least six of my officers are suffering from TB,” he said justifying his decision to dispose of the petition. He, however, said the NGO could move the court again should the government fail to act within the specified time.

An inter-ministerial committee had in a report on August 18, 2003 said of the 4819 registered tea plantations, 1367 had defaulted on paying workers’ dues. The largest defaults were in Kerala, Assam and Bengal.

The committee had then warned that the default position was further deteriorating in Kerala, Bengal and Assam.