E-Paper
Supreme Court stays Allahabad HC's 'Ram bharose' Covid order, says 'not implementable'
"If this is the state of affairs of treatment at medical college in the city like Meerut then the entire medical system of the state pertaining to the smaller cities and villages can only be taken to be like a famous Hindi saying Ram bharose,” Allahabad high court said on May 17.
The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the recent order passed by the Allahabad high court in which the high court suggested several measured for the development of medical infrastructure in the state and observed that the entire healthcare system in villages and small cities of the state was "Ram bharose" (at God's mercy), reports said.
A vacation bench of Justices Vineet Saran and BR Gavai said the high court consider looking into the possibility of implementation while passing any directions and should refrain if such direction is not implementable.
“Such directions cannot be implemented and it shall be treated as advice and not directions. The state government, which will work to provide facilities to the people will keep in mind the advice of the High Court”, it said.
The observations of the vacation bench come as it was hearing the submissions made by solicitor general Tushar Mehta, who was representing Uttar Pradesh government. While the "directions" of the Allahabad high court are "well-meaning", they are difficult to implement, Mehta told the apex court, as reported by Livelaw.
On May 17, the Allahabad high court chastised the Uttar Pradesh government's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and said if the situation of Meerut is such that a patient goes missing and then his body is disposed of as unidentified, then the situation of the smaller cities and villages can only be "Ram bharose".
Such observations will have a demoralising effect on the health care professionals in the state, Tushar Mehta said.
The remark was for a specific incident of the death of one Santosh Kumar, who was admitted to an isolation ward of a hospital in Meerut. The body of the 64-year-old was disposed of as unidentified as the hospital could not locate his file.
The high court bench comprising justice Siddhartha Varma and justice Ajit Kumar directed that all nursing homes should have oxygen bed facilities and the medical college hospitals of the states should be upgraded to the level of Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute within four months. The high court also directed they every village in the state should be provided with two ambulances with ICU facilities within a month.
Taking note of this direction of providing all villages with two ambulances with ICU facilities, the Supreme Court bench said that it would not be "humanly possible" as Uttar Pradesh has 97,000 villages.
(With agency inputs)
