New Delhi, July 23: The Supreme Court today said Bengal and two other states needed to do “something” if the tide of widows thronging Vrindavan were to be stemmed.

“These states must do something,” Justice D.K. Jain, one of the two judges on a bench that rued the rising number of widows being dumped in Vrindavan, said.

The bench, which also included Justice Madan B. Lokur, scoffed at various government schemes to address the problems of the downtrodden like these abandoned women, most of them from Bengal and Odisha.

The court, however, refused to direct the government to immediately sanction old-age pension for these women for fear that it would push them further into the arms of “touts”.

The lawyer for an NGO, which had sought the court’s intervention to deal with problems these widows faced, had suggested that the bench ask the government to sanction a monthly pension of Rs 1,000 for each. “This will go a long way in solving their problems,” counsel Colin Gonsalves said.

But the bench refused. “We are sorry to say that we have hundreds of such schemes. But all of us know where the money goes. Rupees 100 will go to them (the widows) and Rs 900 to touts whose profession is to exploit them,” Justice Jain said.

“This will push them further into the arms of touts,” Justice Jain added. “There are a large number of touts whose profession, occupation is to exploit these widows.”

The bench also took a dig at the commissions and how they functioned. “You know what for we have commissions,” he said.

Justice Jain was commenting after receiving a report from the National Legal Services Authority (Nalsa), which had directed a survey on Vrindavan widows following media reports that highlighted their plight. The Nalsa report, given to the court in a sealed cover, also said these women could benefit from free legal aid.

Justice Lokur, however, observed that 50 per cent of lawyers were not interested in taking up such causes. The bench then directed that Bengal, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh be issued notices on the petition as these states needed to so “something”.

The bench said even if these women were to be rehabilitated, these states must play their part. “The problem is complex,” it added, citing an instance in which a 45-year-old widow had refused to cook at a rehabilitation centre, saying she was better off on the streets.

A Nalsa study has shown that some of these women, who generally spend their time singing bhajans and kirtans or begging in temples of Varanasi, had been abandoned by their husbands.

The state does not provide them basic health services or shelter. They also die an undignified death, the report said, their bodies being taken away in jute bags before being thrown into rivers.

Nalsa also cited an earlier study, sponsored by the Union ministry of women and child development, to highlight the plight of widows at religious places in Bengal.

The report, The Situation Analysis of Widows in Religious places of West Bengal, prepared by the Jayaprakash Institute of Social Change, Calcutta, blamed migration mainly on extreme poverty, ill-treatment by family members, desertion and ostracisation and said very few (6 per cent) left their homes for devotional purposes. This section is seen only in Nabadwip.

Nalsa identified other religious places in Bengal where widows throng, such as Tarapith, Kalighat, Dakshineshwar and Furfura Sharif.