NEW DELHI: A sessions judge here has set aside the order of a magisterial court and directed it to frame notice and proceed further against two people under provisions of the Child and Adolescent Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act for allegedly keeping a 12-year-old girl as domestic help.
Additional Sessions Judge Sunil Gupta was hearing a revision petition by the Delhi government against the order of a metropolitan magistrate in January 2020 discharging the two accused. According to the prosecution, after a 12-year-old girl, forced to work as domestic help in South Delhi, was rescued on November 23, 2013, an FIR was registered against accused Mukta Rani and Jai Ram Singh.
The court noted the magisterial court had discharged both on the ground that working as a domestic help in a house in a non-hazardous environment was not covered under the Child Labour Act.
This was, however, “not tenable in law” as the Act and its schedule were amended in 2016 and, according to the existing law, no child can be employed as a “domestic worker or domestic servant,” the court said.