A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition has been filed before the Bombay High Court seeking directions to the government for the grant of urgent drought relief and social security measures for landless agricultural labourers and marginal workers across Maharashtra [Swabhimani Mazdoor Sanghatan v. Union of India & Ors.]

Advocate Devyani Kulkarni mentioned the PIL before a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Mahesh C Tripathi and Justice Advait Sethna today, seeking an urgent listing of the case. 

The Court has agreed to hear the matter on November 4.

The petition, filed by a rural workers' union named Swabhimani Mazdoor Sanghatan, highlights severe agrarian distress following drought declarations across 305 out of 358 talukas in Maharashtra. 

The Union of India, the State of Maharashtra, and several government departments have been arrayed as respondents. 

According to the petitioner, standard relief packages such as land revenue waivers and short-term crop loan restructurings are tied strictly to land records and formal banking credit. This shuts out landless farm workers from any relief. The plea challenges this framework under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India. 

“The relief announced is farmer-centric and tied to land records, and arbitrarily excludes landless labourers, marginal farmers and migrant workers, who are the most vulnerable; this is unreasonable classification violating Article 14,” the plea states. 

The petitioner-union further asserted that debt relief measures fail to account for micro-finance institutions and informal credit networks, exposing wage-dependent families to coercive recovery and debt bondage.

The PIL also raises systemic failures in implementing the newly enacted Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025 (VB-G RAM G Act) and the Maharashtra Employment Guarantee Act, 1977.

The petitioner contends that technical and digital barriers have prevented distressed labourers from obtaining guaranteed 125-day wage work or receiving mandatory unemployment allowances within 15 days of demand. 

The petitioner has prayed for a writ of mandamus directing the authorities to:

- Disburse statutory unemployment allowances and cash assistance pegged to the notified minimum wages for unskilled labour;

- Supply free foodgrains and meals without insisting on rigid documentary technicalities;

- Ensure tanker-based safe drinking water and animal fodder across drought-hit talukas; and

- Formulate a three-year time-bound drought mitigation plan monitored by the court through monthly compliance reports.

When the matter was mentioned today, the Court initially pointed to the mitigation measures already announced by the State for the benfit of farmers.

“The government is already taking steps. Perhaps you have not seen the relief measures that have been given,” Chief Justice Tripathi said. 

Kulkarni countered that existing administrative packages exclusively target farmers who own land, while bypassing the larger rural unorganised workforce.

“We have seen [the notifications]. An immediate relief package of ₹5000 has been given but agricultural workers and marginal farmers are left out of it,” Kulkarni submitted.

She further pointed out that a connected matter, highlighting the plight of sugarcane cutters, was already scheduled for hearing on November 4.

The Bench, therefore, directed the present PIL be tagged and listed on the same date.