Delhi High Court issued notice to the Central Government and Delhi Government in order to gain information of all medical facilities and infrastructure to deal with the outbreak of Corona Virus.
The decision was taken by the Division Bench which consisted of Chief Justice of Delhi High Court, D.N Patel and Justice C Hari Shankar.
This Public Interest Litigation was filed by Advocate Triveni Potekar through Advocates Nivedita Sharma and Kirti Mewar. The petition mentioned about the country’s dire situation of being affected of this pandemic outbreak due to lack of infrastructure for screen testing, isolation facilities, trained health workers and medical facilities in the small and rural localities within the country.
Further, it added that the public at large is in fear and uncertainty due to the spread of misinformation about the virus. Hence, it is the right of the public to be informed about the Centre’s and State Government’s preparedness in restraining the spread of the pandemic virus.
The petitioner opined that "...the Respondent No 1 (Centre) has not provided any preventive mechanism other than screening at 21 airport and ports and have established only 15 testing centres and 50 thousand PPEs and the same seems grossly inadequate."
Therefore, the petitioner has sought the judicial review of the preparation and steps taken by the Central and State Government based on scientific and not on an ad-hoc basis. Moreover, they sought directions for making information which is relevant along with guidance, availability of medical facilities for treatment and testing COVID-19/ Corona Virus to benefit the public in large.
The matter will be next heard on March 30, 2020.
Similarly, Public Interest Litigation was filed by Advocate Shashank Shri Tripathi, who is a practising lawyer in the Allahabad High Court against the Respondent, Honourable High Court of Judicature at Allahabad and four others.
The matter was heard by the bench consisting of Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court Govind Mathur and Justice Ramesh Sinha and they sought for writ like Mandamus to command the State of Uttar Pradesh and its subsidiaries to ensure suitable precautionary steps to restrict the infection of Novel Corona Virus in the premises of Allahabad High Court and Lucknow.
The PIL sought directions to institute High-level Committee for precaution containing experts for prevention of COVID-19 in the premises of High Court.
They also mentioned about the entrance of a large number of people visiting the premises of Allahabad High Court in which there may be people suffering from Corona Virus. Therefore, they stated that it was necessary to have precautionary measures and that it is required to identify the infected persons as well as to prevent the spread of the virus which will be a worldwide epidemic.
The Chief Medical Officer of Prayagraj has informed that they have already sent a team to the High Court of Allahabad to spray with Anti-Mosquito and fogging, the team has been formed to respond rapidly to the expansion of COVID-19.
It was noted by the bench that, the measures taken by the Medical Officer of Prayagraj isn’t quite effective to protect people from the virus but addressed about the advisories issued by the Government of Uttar Pradesh and steps to check the person infected with COVID-19.
The High Court opined that these steps need to be complied with at the earliest. A complete report on the steps taken is also to be intimated to the High Court on the next date of hearing.
Author: Asif Iqbal
