Several lives could have been saved by door-to-door Covid vaccination: Bombay HC

Expressing anguish at the Central government for not abiding by its earlier direction to consider allowing door-to-door vaccination, the Bombay high court (HC) on Wednesday observed that had such policy been implemented, it would have saved lives of several senior citizens and specially-abled persons who were unable to visit vaccination centres

Expressing anguish at the Central government for not abiding by its earlier direction to consider allowing door-to-door vaccination, the Bombay high court (HC) on Wednesday observed that had such policy been implemented, it would have saved lives of several senior citizens and specially-abled persons who were unable to visit vaccination centres.

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The court also asked the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to apprise it on its proposed initiative to have ward-wise vaccination camps to reach out to a larger population in Mumbai and sought to know if vaccination officials would visit homes and administer jabs to eligible persons.

After being informed that persons without any type of identity card could register on the Co-WIN website for getting the vaccination, the court sought to know whether beggars, homeless and transgenders could avail of the facility. The court asked Mumbai, Pune and other civic authorities to inform it about measures undertaken by them to vaccinate such persons and also the number of such beneficiaries.

The division bench of chief justice Dipankar Datta and justice Girish Kulkarni was hearing the public interest litigation (PIL) filed by lawyers Dhruti Kapadia and Kunal Tiwari, seeking directions to the Centre, the Maharashtra government and the BMC to provide door-to-door vaccination facility for people over 75 years of age, the specially-abled and the bed-ridden.

On Wednesday, the court asked additional solicitor general Anil Singh as to why its earlier directions were not complied, “When we had passed the reasoned order on April 22, your government should have considered either way. Why wait till filing of an affidavit in Supreme Court in suo motu PIL?”

While referring to photographs in local newspapers wherein senior citizens in wheelchairs were seen waiting in queues at vaccination centres the bench said, “If we had door-door vaccination, so many of our prominent citizens across fields, who were not in good health could have saved them. Definitely, something could have been done. Particularly considering some of the recent deaths.”

The chief justice then said that in the meeting of senior administrative judges with BMC commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal on Tuesday, they were assured that by May 17, BMC would have vaccination camps across all its wards in Mumbai and said, “Once such camps are started, we will have to see whether it would be possible for the BMC to send vaccination officials to the residences of bedridden persons to administer the jabs. This is the only way we can do it.”

The bench sought response from the Centre and civic bodies on its queries and posted the further hearing to May 19.