Telangana High Court Issues Notice On Plea Seeking To Implement 'SOS' System At Hospitals To Prevent Events Of Violence

The Telangana High Court on Tuesday issued notice on a writ petition filed by River Hospitals MLG, praying that a system be implemented in all hospitals by way of which hospitals can send an SOS distress signal to the authorities in case of any untoward event of dispute leading to assault, violence or public lynching.

Bench of Justice C.V. Bhaskar Reddy issued notices to the Chief Secretary, Department of General Administration; Superintendent of Police and others concerned.

The Hospital stated that it had state of the art technology and grade A health service providers, however one V. Mattaiah had held press conference in February and defamed the petitioner.

"Recently, the Respondent No. 4 has conducted press meets as a third party (even though he is not an affected party) as a cheap trick to blackmail the Petitioner, its staff and released a press statements and those were published in the newspaper of Respondent No. 5 i.e Nava Telangana with malafide intention with certain false, untrue, malicious and highly defamatory statements," the petition read.

The petitioner further stated that on 27th and 28th February, the Hospital had issued legal notice to V. Mattaiah asking him to retract his statement and submit an unconditional apology to avoid criminal and civil repercussions; following which, it is alleged that V. Mattaiah raided the hospital with 20 of his henchmen and petrol threatening dire consequences.

The petitioner placed before the Court instances of the Gauhati, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh High Courts wherein the Courts had passed guidelines to curb and prevent attacks against medical practitioners and prayed that Telangana also implement measures to safeguard medical practitioners and staff.

The matter is now posted on 6th June for counters.

Case no.: WP 6363 of 2024

Counsel for petitioner: Dr. D.V. Rao