Petition filed without any groundwork: Delhi HC refuses to entertain plea seeking financial aid, food for sex workers, LGBT community

The Delhi High Court yesterday refused to entertain a petition seeking food, accommodation, medicine etc for sex workers and LGBT community in the city during the COVID-19 lockdown. (Anurag Chauhan vs UOI).A Division Bench of Justices Rajiv Sahai Endlaw and Sangita Dhingra Sehgal remarked, .To say the least, the petition is filed without any ground work and without any thought to it. When we asked the counsel for the petitioner, for whose benefit the petition has been filed and how such people/persons are to be identified, he had no clue and appears to be thunderstruck by the question.Delhi High Court.The Petitioner, Advocate Anurag Chauhan, had moved the High Court contending that the Delhi Government and the Central Government had deviated from their aims and objectives of providing basic financial aid to sex workers and the LGBT community. ."Sex workers are facing issues like scarcity of food. But this is not the only difficulty. Different sex workers need different assistance depending on their health, financial and living situations. There are sex wokers living with HIV, hypertension, diabetes and several other ailments and they have medicinal requirements on a regular basis, Women need other things too be it santizers, napkins or baby food. There are many sex wrokers who also need mental health to overcome these testing times.", the Petition had stated. .It was added that most sex workers were migrants and had no ration card, thus keeping them outside the ambit of PDS and other aids..Invoking Article 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution of India, the Petitioner sought effective measures for providing financial aid including food, shelter etc to sex workers and LGBT community. Directions were also sought to set up a helpline number and to exempt sex works and LGBT community from paying rent..In response to the assertions made by the Petitioner, the Court remarked, .When asked, whether any separate register is maintained of such persons, as indeed cannot be, again the petitioner has no idea. We asked the Petitioner, whether such persons would come forward to identify themselves; he is again unable to say anything whatsoever except for stating that such task should also be assigned to the respondent.Delhi High Court.It was further observed that although the Petitioner had sought suspension of rent, the respective landlords had not been impleaded. .The Court also pointed out that in spite of the High Court Rules requiring the Petitioner to disclose the earlier PILs filed by him along with their outcome, the Petitioner paid mere lip service to the requirement by stating “disposed of”. .He is even now not telling whether the earlier petitions have been dismissed, the Court recorded. .Observing that the Central, as well as the State Government had already brought out several schemes to alleviate hardship to the citizens in the wake of COVID-19, the Court opined that there was no case that sex workers and LGBT community were being discriminated against..The Court thus concluded that the PIL deserved to be dismissed with costs..The Petitioner then proceeded to withdraw the petition..The request was allowed by the Court with the following direction that...the petitioner, if files any other public interest litigation in his name or on behalf of anybody else, to file a copy of this order alongwith the said PIL and mention this order prominently, in the synopsis as well as in the body of such fresh petition if any.Delhi High Court.Read the Order: