Supreme Court contempt notice to 51 Delhi hospitals for low EWS patient numbers

The Supreme Court appointed the Delhi health secretary as the nodal officer to take “all such measures and actions” against the hospitals and inform the court

The Supreme Court has issued contempt notices to 51 private hospitals in Delhi for not providing free treatment and beds to poor patients and pulled up the government and land-owning agencies for acting “casually” against the defaulters.

The Supreme Court has posted the matter for March 24 (Hindustan Times)

Listing the 51 hospitals, a bench of justices PK Mishra and NV Anjaria said, “Let notice be issued to the following hospitals to show cause as to why proceedings for committing contempt of court shall not be taken against them for violating this court’s order; and why the concessions granted to them by the Delhi government shall not be withdrawn.”

The court also appointed the Delhi health secretary as the nodal officer to take “all such measures and actions”. The Delhi Development Authority (DDA), Land and Development Office (L&DO) and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) have been ordered to cooperate with the nodal officer.

“If any lapses are found on the part of the above offices, it will be the nodal officer who shall be responsible to inform this court and take action,” the bench said in the order passed on February 24. The court order was uploaded to the top court’s website on February 27.

The nodal officer has also been directed to serve contempt notices on the 51 hospitals that had been allotted government land at subsidised or concessional rates. The case has been posted for March 24.

The 51 hospitals were named in an affidavit filed by the Delhi government on February 18, a copy of which has been reviewed by HT (HT GFX)

The apex court passed the order in a proceeding related to the monitoring of its 2018 order, which reinstated the obligation of such hospitals to provide free treatment and required submission of periodic information on compliance from all such hospitals. The condition for the land concession was to provide 10% of beds in the in-patient department (IPD) and 25% of services in the out-patient department (OPD) to economically weaker section (EWS) patients.

The 51 hospitals were named in an affidavit filed by the Delhi government on February 18, a copy of which has been reviewed by HT, filed in response to a January 21 order seeking steps taken to implement the court’s 2018 judgment.

“We are of the view that strict actions are not taken against the hospitals who are in violation of this court’s order dated July 9, 2018,” the bench said in the February 24 order.

The Delhi government’s affidavit said that since the land leases of these hospitals were issued by DDA, L&DO, and the MCD, letters were issued to the three authorities to take action against the defaulting hospitals.

The bench was unimpressed.

“It appears to us that the letters issued by the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) is not responded to or acted upon by the above mentioned authorities (DDA, L&DO, MCD), and the entire proceedings are taken very casually,” the top court said.

The Delhi government represented by additional solicitor general (ASG) VIkramjeet Banerjee pointed out that, as against the threshold of 25% OPD service, the 14 hospitals issued notice last year fared poorly in the range of 1-10%. As regards IPD, barring one hospital, all failed to fulfil the 10% EWS criteria.

The affidavit said, “As is evident from the report of the directorate general of health services (DGHS) and the submissions of the hospitals in question, non-compliance of the orders of the Supreme Court is manifest, insofar as meeting the free treatment obligation of EWS category is concerned.”

As per the Delhi government’s health department records, a total of 63 hospitals that have been allotted land on concessional terms are bound to provide free treatment to EWS. Of these, only 56 are functional. In these hospitals, government liaison officers are posted to facilitate free IPD and OPD services for poor patients.

On January 2 this year, the Delhi government enhanced the income criteria for free treatment of EWS patients from ₹2.20 lakh to ₹5 lakh. This was done pursuant to a Delhi high court judgment of 2023 that applied ₹5 lakh income yardstick for EWS admissions in private schools bound by this clause in their land allotment deed.