India Has Taken Huge Strides In Providing Medical Facilities, Courts Can’t Decide On Procurement Of Instruments In Hospitals: Delhi High Court

Observing that India has taken huge strides in providing medical facilities with latest technologies and qualified professionals at accessible costs, the Delhi High Court has said that courts cannot take decision on procurement of instruments in hospitals as it is a matter of policy.

A division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad dismissed a public interest litigation moved by one Parminder Singh seeking directions for ensuring availability of video laryngoscopes in the healthcare system to manage difficult intubation systems.

Calling the petition ill-conceived, the court said that no data was provided by Singh that absence of video laryngoscope has resulted in a number of failures leading to deaths of patients.

“This petition is ill conceived and the Petitioner has been only used as a front by manufacturers of video laryngoscope who wish to promote their products. Of late, this Court is witnessing that the jurisdiction of Public Interest Litigation is being misused only to secure personal benefits and such PILs are abuse of the process of law which must be discouraged,” it said.

Taking judicial notice of the fact that many patients from neighbouring countries come to India to avail the facilities provided by the hospitals here, the court said:

“The medical facilities and the equipment that is available in the hospitals of our country are world class and are easily accessible to the public at large. In fact, India is famous for its medical tourism as it combines the latest technologies with qualified professionals at accessible costs.”

The court noted that Singh is not a doctor and has not done any research work to demonstrate that unless a video laryngoscope is not used, the process of laryngoscopy will end in a failure.

This petition seems to be sponsored by certain manufacturers to promote the video laryngoscope technology produced by them and are abusing the judicial process by filing the present PIL, it said.

The bench observed that laryngoscopy is a common procedure done in all hospitals which does not even require hopitalization, adding that courts cannot force governments to procure video laryngoscope in all hospitals as the same is a matter of policy.

“It is well settled that the Courts do not run governments and decisions to procure instruments in hospitals are taken by the government depending on several circumstances. It is not for the courts to take a decision whether video laryngoscope should be mandatorily made available or not,” it said.

The court dismissed the plea with a warning to Singh to not file "such frivolous petitions" in future.

Title: PARMINDER SINGH v. UNION OF INDIA AND ORS

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Del) 162

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