From antiviral drugs to oxygen supply: How High Courts have responded to the Covid-19 second wave
The Supreme Court on Thursday said multiple proceedings in High Courts were leading to confusion and diversion of resources. 2 hours ago A patient lies inside an ambulance waiting in a queue to enter a Covid-19 hospital in Ahmedabad on April 14. | Reuters/Amit Dave
On Thursday, the Supreme Court decided that it needed to intervene as the Covid-19 pandemic crisis claimed even more lives and India’s medical resources were impossibly strained.
The bench headed by Chief Justice SA Bobde, who is set to retire on Friday, initiated suo moto proceedings to consider four critical problems relating to the response of the authorities to the pandemic: the supply of oxygen, the supply of essential drugs, the method and manner of vaccination and the state’s powers to declare lockdowns.
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Letter to PM calls for uniform, free COVID immunisation for all amid crisis
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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee during an election rally in Asansol district on April 22, 2021.
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Letter to PM calls for uniform, free COVID immunisation for all amid crisis
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi stating that the vaccine policy of the Centre is “highly discriminatory and anti-people”.
“I am afraid, this policy is highly discriminatory and anti-people. Moreover, it appears that there is a bias in favour of market against the interest of common people,” Ms. Banerjee said in the letter addressed to Mr. Modi.
A view of Supreme Court of India in New Delhi. File
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The bench, also comprising justices L Nageswara Rao and S Ravindra Bhat, would take up the plea for hearing on Friday. A lawyers’ body Thursday moved the Supreme Court, which has taken suo motu cognisance of prevailing grim pandemic situation in the country, urging it to allow various high courts to deal with the COVID-19 related issues at local level saying they “appear to be best suited to deal with the situation”.
The top court also hinted that it would deal with the method and manner of COVID-19 vaccination in the country and the aspect relating to judicial power of the high courts to declare lockdown amid the pandemic.
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