Institute for Migrant Rights
Railway line at Cianjur station, c. 1890 · KITLV, CC BY 4.0

Migration Jurisprudence from the South › India

In Re: Problems and Miseries of Migrant Labourers

Supreme Court of India · India · 2021-06-29 · National court

Citation: Suo Motu Writ Petition (Civil) No. 6 of 2020
Type of case: Constitutional and human rights
Outcome: Decided for the migrant side

Question

What must governments do to secure food and registration for migrant workers stranded or out of work during the pandemic?

What the court decided

The Court directed the central government to build a national database of unorganised workers and every state to implement “One Nation One Ration Card”, with dry rations and community kitchens for migrant workers.

In plain language

During COVID-19, millions of workers who had moved within India lost their jobs and could not get food rations away from home. The Supreme Court ordered the government to register them and let them use their ration card anywhere in the country.

Dalam bahasa sederhana

Selama COVID-19, jutaan pekerja yang merantau di dalam India kehilangan pekerjaan dan tidak bisa mendapat jatah pangan di luar daerah asal. Mahkamah Agung memerintahkan pemerintah mendaftar mereka dan membolehkan kartu jatah pangan dipakai di seluruh negeri.

Pertanyaan: Apa yang wajib dilakukan pemerintah agar pekerja migran yang terdampar atau kehilangan pekerjaan selama pandemi mendapat pangan dan terdaftar?

What happened afterwards

  • 2020-05: Court takes up the matter on its own motion.
  • 2021-06-29: Directions issued.
  • 2021-08: National database for unorganised workers (e-Shram) launched.
  • later: [Check state compliance with the ration card direction.]

Sources

Open this decision in the interactive collection (compare, filter, Indonesian view, downloads).

Cite as: Institute for Migrant Rights (2026), Migration Jurisprudence from the South, version 0.1, https://theimr.org/court-decisions/d/in-migrants-2021/. This page summarizes a court decision for research and advocacy; it is not legal advice.

For researchers

This collection of decisions is built for empirical legal scholarship and socio-legal research on migration and the rights of migrant workers, as well as for advocacy.

The coded variables support statistical analysis in law: cross-national comparison, regression and event-history designs, and law and economics questions such as how recruitment fees, wage protection and limits on changing employer affect migrant workers. The data can be downloaded for replication.

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