HC takes note of chaos at crematoriums, calls for a report from state

The Bombay high court (HC) on Tuesday directed the Maharashtra government to provide a status report on crematoriums and morgues across the state, after being informed that the situation at cremation centres was chaotic

The Bombay high court (HC) on Tuesday directed the Maharashtra government to provide a status report on crematoriums and morgues across the state, after being informed that the situation at cremation centres was chaotic. It was also brought to the notice of the court that the crematoriums were insufficient to deal with a large number of bodies of Covid victims being brought for a funeral.

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The court also questioned the centre regarding the lax surveillance as a result of which private persons – a member of Parliament (MP) from Ahmednagar managed to get stock of life-saving drugs like Remdesivir from a pharmaceutical company in Delhi, while the SOPs entail pharma companies to provide its manufactured stock directly to the states.

A division bench of chief justice Dipankar Datta and justice Girish Kulkarni, while hearing the public interest litigation (PIL) filed by advocate Sneha Marjadi, said that though the PIL was originally scheduled to be heard on May 4 it was listed on Tuesday to ascertain the progress and compliance of its orders on April 22.

The PIL sought directions to the state, Centre and civic authorities against the mismanagement of the second wave of Covid-19.

Advocates Simil Purohit and Arshil Shah for the petitioner informed the court that though the BMC had been updating data on the number of Covid-19 positive cases the helpline for the availability of Covid-19 beds in the hospital was not operational.

The BMC through senior counsel Anil Sakhare however disagreed and said that the helpline number was very much functional.

The bench then directed the advocates to call helpline number 1916 to verify the claims of BMC.

After the calls were answered, the bench sought to know how best the BMC could make known the vacancy of beds so that it would be immediately reflected on the dashboard on the BMC portal.

When the petitioners’ advocates drew attention to the issue of dead body management and sought directions to augment the existing infrastructure to cope with a large number of bodies of Covid-19 victims being brought for the funeral the court directed the state government to immediately ask all district collectors to ensure effective dead-body management and have synchronized system for crematoriums.

The court then observed that in some crematorium gas furnaces were not in order and relatives of deceased Covid-19 patients faced various issues, the court directed the state government to inform it on measures taken by authorities to improve the condition of crematoriums and also sought the status of morgues in the state.

The court also took note of the report that an MP from Ahmednagar had got 10,000 vials of Remdesivir to distribute locally while the state was the sole implementing authority for distributing the life-saving drug.

The bench observed that the Aurangabad bench had taken cognizance of the report on April 26 it had not passed any specific order on it.

Aurangabad bench had in its order had stated: “Meantime, respondent authorities be at liberty to take effective steps, as they would have taken in the event of such eventuality and do what a call of duty demands them to do.”

In light of this, the bench asked the state, “How can 10,000 vials be made available by airlifting them from Delhi by a chartered plane? Would it not amount to private distribution by the person? Delhi itself is in crisis.” The court added that if it found further instances where pharmaceutical companies were providing Remdesivir directly to private individuals, it would pass an injunction against the duo.

“We want drugs to reach everyone who is needy and should not be only in the hands of a few,” added the bench and posted the PIL for further hearing on April 29.