Calcutta High Court on Monday held that if any migrant labourer wanted to avail himself/herself of the Centre’s scheme to provide jobs to workers who had returned home from other states during the lockdown, he/she would have to apply for it with the district magistrate.

A division bench of Chief Justice T.B.N Radhakrishnan and Justice Subhasish Dasgupta said the district magistrate would then forward the application to the Union ministry concerned and a decision had to be taken three weeks thereafter. Bengal had been excluded from the Centre’s Rs 50,000 crore Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan scheme.

The court issued the order on a petition filed by Nepal Mahato and others, all migrant labourers who had returned home in Purulia. The bench asked the petitioners to apply before the Purulia DM for their inclusion in the scheme in one week. “If the petitioners make such applications, the DM Purulia will send the matter to the appropriate ministry of the Union government and the ministry would have to take its decision three weeks thereafter,” the bench ruled.