COVID19- "No Night Curfew In Delhi Or Parts Of It As of Now": Delhi Govt To High Court

A Division Bench of Justice Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad was hearing a plea on the steps being taken by the government to control the spread of the pandemic. The court had earlier, asked the Arvind Kejriwal-led government whether night curfew would be imposed in Delhi to contain Covid-19, as has been done in some other states.

After night curfews were implemented for varying periods in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat, to check the spread of the virus, the Delhi High Court had last week asked the Delhi government to consider the same, with the city drowning in the third wave of the infection which has plagued it for nearly a month now.

On asking, the court was also informed that nearly Rs. 17.93 crores had been collected on Covid-restrictions related challans by the Delhi Government and Rs. 27 crores had been collected by the Delhi Police, out of which the former was with the General Treasurer, and the latter had been deposited with the Centre. The Government also stated that the amount with the General Treasurer is not necessarily employed for Covid related issues.

On the question of tests, the High Court was informed that nearly 28,897 RT-PCR tests were done as on 15.11.2020 and 33,298 by 2.12.2020, and further that the total number of Covid-19 related deaths had also gone down.

Justice Hima Kohli asked the Government to ensure special measures to monitor those with mild Covid-19 infection in home isolation, saying that it needs to be ensured that such infected persons do not venture out of their isolation until treated lest they spread the infection to others. She also said that the Government must remember that the present case is not adversarial, and is merely a step "to ensure safety in the city because one doesn't know which way the infection will go and who is infected."

She added that, "The only way out is testing and more testing," and asked the Government about the turnaround time for private laboratories to send the testing report. Upon this, she was informed that the "turnaround time is 24 hours," and further that, the Government has been "facing issues with that (turnaround time of test reports) as the testing capacity is stretched" but that the Government was "trying" to work on it.

On this the court remarked that, some Court staff hadn't received their reports for more than 48 hours, and that no SMSes were received either. The court said that, "You can upload on the website, etc later but the person concerned must be informed on their status."

The court was hearing a PIL by advocate Rakesh Malhotra seeking an increase in the COVID-19 testing numbers in the national capital and getting speedy results.