Specify Vaccine Preparedness For 3rd Wave: Chhattisgarh High Court To State, Centre

The direction comes in the backdrop of submissions made before a Bench of ACJ Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice Parth Prateem Sahu regarding discrepancies in vaccine certificates.

Advocates Abhishek Sinha and Anumeh Shrivastava highlighted the problem arising out of issuance of a defective certificate in respect of vaccination inasmuch as a person getting Covishield jab is issued a certificate of Covaxin jab.

As the State authorities admitted to the issuance of such discrepant certificate, the Bench observed,

"It is the intent of the respondent to provide jab to the citizens which is more important than some glitches which are occurring at some places either while issuing a different certificate or the difficulties in scheduling for the second dose.

However, at the same time, it is important to bear that providing a different certificate than the jab administered to a particular person would not only cause difficulty for getting second jab but also having an unknown risk of a medical problem if a different second jab is given to the same person."

The Court also took note of problems faced by the citizens of the 18+ category, as upon getting the first jab, there is no scheduling for getting the second jab in the CG Teeka App.

It said,

"We expect that as and when the vaccines are available with the State, the scheduling will be done by inviting all the persons who have received the first jab to get themselves registered or obtain the date for receiving second jab."

Lastly, the issue of category-wise allocation of vaccines was raised. It was stated that vaccine administration is being done in violation State Government's order dated 9-5-2021.

The Court however noted that vaccination programme is such a complex phenomenon that mathematical precision cannot be maintained.

"Adherence to the percentage in a precise term is very difficult to achieve. It is also happening because of digital divide and the percentage of population available in the particular area where the vaccination centers are established," it said.

Inter alia, the issues of disposal of dead bodies of COVID-19 affected persons was brought to the Court's notice.

"We expect that the State shall ensure that the dead bodies are buried/cremated in a decent and respectful manner as the right to be respectfully and decently buried/cremated has always been treated to be inclusive in the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India," it observed.

Vaccine preparedness for 3rd Jab

The Division Bench has also asked the Central and the State Government to elaborate what measures have been taken by the States for vaccinating its 80% unvaccinated population when only 17% of the total has received the first dose.

The High Court also asked the State to file the status report of the 'time-bound vaccination program', which it seeks to adopt for completing vaccination before the third wave of pandemic expected in September, 2021.

The order came in a petition filed by Senior Advocate Shailendra Dubey, Member, Bar Council of India, and State Bar Council, Chhattisgarh. The petition filed by Dubey stated that the State has not taken any sincere and serious efforts in vaccinating its population of which only, barely 17% of the population has received the first dose of around 3 crore population of the State.

It was further stated that the 3rd wave of the pandemic is speculated to hit teenagers below 18 years and the State has no wherewithal to tackle the same. Dubey was represented by Counsel Siddharth R. Gupta, assisted by Himanshu Sinha, who argued that to vaccinate each and every citizen of the State is its Constitutional obligation under Article 21 read with Article 47 of the Constitution of India, owed by the State and the Centre to its citizens.

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