The Delhi High Court on Tuesday deferred the hearing on a plea seeking directions to the Centre and the Delhi Government to conduct 1 lakh RT-PCR Tests everyday and to explore the possibility of importing home self-testing kits from countries where such kits are already in use.
A division bench led by Chief Justice D.N. Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh already issued notice in the matter and the sought the response of the Union and the Delhi government on May 5. But when the matter came up for hearing on Tuesday, the Court noted that Service to the Respondent No 3, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare could not be completed due to non-payment of process fee. The court has directed for the same.
A PIL was moved by Advocate Shweta Singh which said a count of 30 lakh or perhaps more active cases of coronavirus and a grappling record of 54 lakh cases were added in the last 27 days of April 2021 by the second wave of Covid-19. A high number of deaths almost 380 per day and increasing new cases made the Capital almost a living graveyard, the plea said.
The plea stated an early detection of Covid-19 can save thousands by strictly rapping authorities who, since January 2021, had a plenty of time to come up with a strong solution to tackle the pandemic.
The prayer sought by the petitioner is stated to direct the respondents to ensure that an average of 1 lakh RT-PCR tests are conducted every day, the plea further avers to direct the state in the due process of vaccination the priority ought to be given to the citizens who supposedly on the date of application weren’t infected with the virus in the past four months, following which the plea sought is to direct the government to explore the possibilities of home testing kits just how countries like the United Kingdom, USA and Canada have adopted owing to the whopping population of India let alone an estimate of approximately 2 crore residents of Delhi, the order to pass home testing kits may help in early detection and lessen the pressure on the medical officials and to regulate a fair sale and quality sale of N95 masks with effectively watching closely and maintain a status quo, in order to avoid circulation of any faulty and fake masks, thereby also making a use of double masking or use of N95 in all public places as a requisite and mandatory requirement.
Owing to the rapid growth of digitalization on and the swift to the reliability of the internet, the plea further avers urgent directions to the State to constitute and formulate a webpage or a web portal available for all the general public that would enable to easily access all relevant information on Covid-19, whether it’s a query related to essential medicines or oxygen supplies everything might be available on a single website for quick search for the public. The Court will hear the matter next on August 2, 2021.