Install sanitary pad vending machines, women washrooms at police stations: Delhi HC
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday asked the police to install sanitary pad vending machines at all police stations in the capital for women personnel
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday asked the police to install sanitary pad vending machines at all police stations in the capital for women personnel and to provide them with exclusive washrooms. The court directed the Commissioner of Police to conduct a survey of all police stations within six weeks to check the availability of these facilities. A bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia said that, based on the survey report, the police must take appropriate steps to ensure that every police station has a sanitary pad vending machine and an exclusive washroom for women personnel. The matter has been listed for hearing on September 23, and the court has sought an affidavit from the police detailing the steps taken.
Read Full Story The order was passed while issuing notice to the Centre, the Delhi government and the police on a petition seeking basic menstrual hygiene and sanitation facilities at the workplace for female police personnel. The bench said, "Based on the report of the survey, appropriate steps shall be taken by the police to provide each police station with the facility of a sanitary pad vending machine and also an exclusive washroom for women personnel," and added, "We require the Commissioner of Police to get a survey conducted of all police stations in Delhi... The survey shall be conducted in six weeks." The plea, filed by NGO Justice for Rights Foundation, said such essential infrastructure for women police personnel was indispensable to the constitutional mandate under Article 21, as it formed an indispensable facet of the right to live with dignity, health, privacy and humane conditions at work.
Citing information obtained under the RTI regime, the petitioner said that despite thousands of women police personnel serving across hundreds of police stations in Delhi, sanitary pad vending machines were available only in a few stations and there was no budgetary allocation or policy for hygiene facilities and infrastructure. The petition said, "This omission on the part of the State transcends a mere administrative lapse.... The Respondents' failure to provide such basic infrastructure violates their dignity, health, privacy, and safe working conditions, contrary to Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution." It sought directions to install and maintain sanitary pad vending machines and sanitary incinerators in all police stations and units under the Delhi Police, and also asked for clean, functional, private and adequately equipped washrooms exclusively for women police personnel at all Delhi Police establishments.
The BriefWire