In a land mark judgment,1 Justice Krishna Iyer made certain important observations which need a study to find out how realistic they are even today i.e., 34 years after his retirement.  These observations are extracted from the judgment for the purposes of present study. Justice Krishna Iyer observes:- “The abolition of slavery has gone on for a long time.  Rome abolished slavery, America abolished it, and we did,2 but only the words were abolished, not the thing”3. (Para 1) Art 23(1) provides thus: “Traffic in human beings and begar and other similar forms of forced labour are prohibited and any contravention of this provision shall be an offence punishable in accordance with law….” Parliament enacted the “Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976” to giv ....