Don’t use 3 Mahul buildings as Covid-19 quarantine facilities without court’s nod: Bombay high court to Mumbai civic body

The Bombay high court (HC) on Friday directed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to not use the vacant buildings at Mahul – meant for resettlement of project-affected

The Bombay high court (HC) on Friday directed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to not use the vacant buildings at Mahul – meant for resettlement of project-affected persons (PAPs) – as quarantine centres for suspected Covid-19 patients without permission from the court.

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The bench of chief justice Dipankar Datta and justice Amjad Sayed passed the order, even as BMC stated that the three empty buildings at the Mahul PAP Colony, also known as Eversmile Complex, will be used only as a last resort, if the suspected coronavirus patients could not be accommodated elsewhere in the M-West ward.

The court was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) jointly filed by Sharda Tevar – the mother of an undertrial prisoner lodged at Arthur Road jail – and a non-governmental organisation (NGO) – Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan – which is working along with the homeless, slum dwellers and marginalised communities on housing, food and water rights issues.

The petitioners contended that Mahul is the most unsuitable area in the city to quarantine Covid-19 patients and suspects, as residents in the locality develop a variety of health issues, particularly severe respiratory problems, and it will be counter-productive to quarantine Covid-19 patients at PAP Colony.

“Indeed, others who have been rehabilitated to Mahul in the past have reported a series of severe respiratory ailments like asthma and tuberculosis within a short period of moving to Mahul,” the PIL said.

According to the petitioners’ counsel, advocate Ronita Bector, three judicial forums have declared the PAP Colony to be uninhabitable because of the high levels of industrial pollution and the toxic air quality, and HC had last year in September restrained the state government from shifting any slum dweller or PAP at Eversmile Complex.

In response to the petition, BMC has filed an affidavit stating that the number of Covid-19 positive cases is likely to go up to 2,946 in the M-West ward, where Mahul is located, and 70℅ of the cases are expected to be from densely-populated areas, such as slums. It adds that considering 10 contacts of every patient would likely be quarantined, the municipal corporation will have to arrange for a quarantine facility for around 30,000 people, and in the view of an extreme shortage of space for quarantine facilities, it had decided to use the three buildings.

The affidavit further stated that the civic body has identified three completely vacant buildings at Eversmile Complex for accommodating 1,100 high-risk and low-risk contacts. But the buildings will be used only as a last resort and only if the number of Covid-19 patients in the ward increases and their contacts could not be quarantined elsewhere.