Petition challenging Act on working women’s hostel filed

A division bench comprising Justice S Manikumar and Justice Subramonium Prasad before whom the plea came up on Friday directed the Government advocate to produce the Government Orders (GO) relating to the guidelines issued and posted it for orders on Monday.

The petitioners had contended that at present the rent including boarding ranges from Rs 4,500 to Rs 6,000, wherein four women are accommodated in a room having a carpet area of about 120 square feet with attached bath and six women are accommodated in a room having a carpet area of about 240 square feet with attached baths. But now, based on the Act, the hostel owners are demanding a rent ranging from Rs 15,000 to Rs 30,000, which is three to five times more than the existing rent and half of the inmates have been asked to search for some other accommodation.

Noting that enquiries revealed that this additional demand of rent as well as the direction to vacate the hostels is due to the prescription of minimum of 120 square feet for each inmate, compulsory appointment of wardens and security personnel drawn from retired police personnel round the clock on three shifts under the impugned Act, the plea claimed that the said regulation does not apply to men’s hostel. Also, on submitting that the Social Welfare and Nutrition Meal Department, which prescribed the guidelines had neither made any study nor analysed the conditions of working women and ill effects of the impugned provisions on the livelihood of the women, the counsel appearing for the petitioners submitted that when 30 per cent of the population dwell under poor living conditions, it is not known as to why the State prescribes such luxury standards for working women.

The petitioners have their right to select the hostel they want to stay based on their financial conditions and they could suffer with lesser space index so as to save money to help their poor families and if the Act is implemented fully, more than two lakh women would be in streets without accommodation and consequently would lose their jobs and have to return to their native villages, the counsel added.