'Despite Tall Claims, Absolute Unemployment & Many Below Poverty Line': SC

"We can give you cases where there’s absolute unemployment. You know what our country is! Despite tall claims, there are large sections of our country which are living below the poverty line," the Supreme Court said.

(Image altered by The Quint)

Despite "tall claims", large sections of the society are living below the poverty line.

This was a verbal observation made by a Supreme Court bench of Justices KM Joseph and BV Nagarathna. on Monday, 20 March.

What exactly did SC say? According to Livelaw, the bench remarked:

“We can give you cases where there’s absolute unemployment. You know what our country is! Despite tall claims, there are large sections of our country which are living below the poverty line.”

And what was the context? The apex court’s observation came while considering a special leave petition challenging an order of the Karnataka High Court, in a matter pertaining to the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.

The respondent, in this matter was unhappy with the number of adjournments that the other party had sought, despite the case having been listed several times. Appearing in-person, he also said that he had been unemployed for several months and  that his family is barely getting by on his wife’s income.

In response to this, the bench said that there were several cases of “absolute unemployment” in the country. The bench also said that several of them hailed from far worse conditions than the respondent and added:

“You were a senior manager. We are talking about labourers. Now, they are ready to work for Rs 6,000. I can tell you cases of Anganawadi workers…”

The bench, however, did consent to hearing the case on 25 April as the first item.

(With inputs from Livelaw.)