HC questions Centre, Maharashtra govt on incorrect details on vax certificates

The court also asked the state to formulate a procedure to vaccinate people who were not registered on CoWin as it did not want anyone to be left out from being vaccinated

The Bombay high court (HC) has questioned the Centre and state to explain how some beneficiaries of the vaccination ended up with certificates issued through the CoWin app having same dates and batch numbers for both jabs. The court also asked the authorities to inform how the error would be rectified to avoid “harassment” to the beneficiaries.

HC also asked the Maharashtra government if the third dose or a booster shot of Covid-19 vaccine was required to be taken by citizens who have already received two jabs.

The HC also directed the Centre and the state to enumerate the method of distribution of vaccines after it was informed that the vaccination drive in Maharashtra had seen a drop in the past month due to shortage of supply. The court asked the governments to file affidavits regarding the same.

The division bench of chief justice Dipankar Datta and justice Girish Kulkarni, while hearing the public interest litigation (PIL) filed by a citizen Yogeeta Rajesh Vanzara, was informed by advocate Jamsheed Master that people faced several issues related to CoWin app and sought directions seeking ease of its operation, especially for the elderly. The bench had also ordered clubbing of another PIL filed by Mumbai-based lawyer Siddharth Chandrashekhar, wherein advocate Anita Shekhar-Castellino had pointed to the issues faced while booking slots on the CoWin portal and priority vaccination slots for the elderly.

In the hearing on July 17, the bench had asked the Centre to file an affidavit on how vaccines were being allocated to different states and what was the procedure and time limit assigned to each manufacturer to supply them.

On Monday, while perusing the affidavit filed by the Centre, the court observed that its queries had not been answered to a large extent.

“We are concerned to observe that the deponent of such an affidavit was not serious,” the court noted and asked the Union Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) to file a better reply, indicating distribution of vaccines to Maharashtra.

Additional government pleader Geeta Shastri for the state informed the bench that Maharashtra continued to face shortage of vaccines from the Centre and while it had nearly 90 million persons eligible for vaccination, 33 million had got one jab, while 11 million people had received both. The court was further informed that while nearly 2 million in the city were due to receive the second jab, only 500,000-700,000 jabs were being provided on a daily basis.

Thereafter, Castellino pointed out that that some citizens, who got Covishield, were issued vaccination certificates with errors such as incorrect names, batch number of vaccine received and in some cases the date of both the doses was printed the same. She submitted that as there was no means to rectify such errors it could result in certificates of such persons being doubted, leading to harassment and hence the court should intervene.

“We want the Centre and state to explain how such defective certificates could be generated and what could be the procedure for having them corrected. We issue general directions. In case such difficulties are seen in future, immediate steps should be taken to make corrections and actual date and names be mentioned in the certificate,” noted the bench. The court also asked the state to formulate a procedure to vaccinate people who were not registered on CoWin as it did not want anyone to be left out from being vaccinated.

Seeking Centre’s response on state-wise distribution of vaccines and to making rectification in vaccine certificates by August 9 and state government’s reply to the plea by August 13, the court posted the further hearing to August 23.

‘Is 3rd dose needed?’

HC asked the Maharashtra government if the third dose or a booster shot of Covid-19 vaccine was required to be taken by citizens who have already received two jabs.

The division bench headed by chief justice Dipankar Datta referred to the disclosure of Dr Sanjay Oak, head of state Covid-19 task force, wherein he had informed HC’s administrative committee that people with two doses may require a third shot to protect themselves from several variants of the virus.

While asking advocate general Ashutosh Kumbhakoni regarding Dr Oak’s statement, the bench said, “Will a third dose be required to be taken 10 months from the second Covishield dose and six months from the second dose of Covaxin? Get a response from the Covid-19 task force as to how far the third dose is necessary. It should not happen that we are happy with the second dose, but there is an increase [in cases].”