Check Purported Illegality, Brutality Exhibited By The Police In Enforcing Lockdown: Patna High Court To Bihar Govt

The Bench of Chief Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice S. Kumar also asked the Government to develop a State Level Protocol, enabling a common person to understand the need of dealing with the virus.

Report of three Member Team of Experts

The Court perused the report filed by a three Member Team of Experts comprising on the issue of sufficiency or lack of infrastructure, be it of beds; oxygen; medicines; human resource; and security, for meeting the requirement of the current Pandemic Covid-19.

The Committee concluded:

• The pathological test is important for the individual as well as for society. It is more important for society as a criterion for isolation & preventing spread.
• Management is more important for individuals & it should be done without waiting for the test report. Valuable time is lost in starting the treatment in waiting for the test result.
• Patients have to suffer more from hospital to hospital for admission in absence of a test report.
• The hospital should start treatment on the guidelines of covid and take admission accordingly. Refusing patients in the name of tests in not justified.

As such, in reference to the report of the experts, the Court issued the following directions: -

• The recommendations of the Committee be examined by the Government; Medical Health Institutions- Government or Private; and all other stakeholders, for their application to the extent possible.
• The Officer Incharge of the Army Medical Corp shall file his personal affidavit indicating the lack of infrastructure, be it of any form. This he shall do within three days.
• A capsulated course of training is prepared for giving basic training to the unskilled youth, ready and willing to work at the designated centres.
• The Government, as also Medical Health Institutions, Public and Private, must proactively take steps for disseminating information and put in place a grievance redressal mechanism, for this alone would instil confidence in the mind of the general public.
• The State has adopted the policy of test, track and treat, but for an illiterate person in the village, disseminating information has to be in his language or how he understands best.
  
• The issue of maltreatment of patients and attendants needs to be addressed immediately.

In related news, observing that in Buxar District of Bihar, if in 10 days only in one crematorium, 789 persons were cremated, then what would be the position in the entire District, the Patna High Court on Monday (May 17) had directed the State Government,

"All facts first must be verified from all sources and then only placed before us, else it will amount to filing of false/incomplete affidavit".

The Bench of Chief Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice S. Kumar had also directed Government that the official Website maintained by the State of Bihar for recording the births and the deaths be regularly updated.

Also, a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition has been filed before the Patna High Court seeking immediate constitution a Special Investigating Team to investigate and submit its report to the High Court on the issue of the dead bodies found at the shore of river Ganges in Buxar district of the state.

The Petition has been filed by Anupam Prabhat Shrivastava and Sudeep Chandra through Advocate Vishal Kumar Singh stating that the finding of the bloated and decomposed dead bodies in the river Ganga has created chaos amongst the people and has made them vulnerable.

Case title – Shivani Kaushik v. Union of India and Ors.

Click Here To Download Order

Read Order