The Madras High Court on Thursday issued notice to the Central Government in a Public Interest Litigation seeking repatriation of Indian citizens stranded in Maldives amid outbreak of COVID-19.
The PIL is filed by Mr. T. Huberton who is a practicing lawyer belonging to Kanyakumari District and according to him, there are more than 29,000 migrant workers stranded in Maldives and on account of the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic virus everywhere in the world, Maldives is not an exception and without any proper or sufficient facilities available, they are languishing in the open Sun and there is every possibility that they may be affected / infected by the pandemic virus.
The petitioner has prayed for following reliefs in his writ petition:-
- To appoint an exclusive Special Nodal Officer, namely – Special Nodal Officer – COVID 19 at Indian Mission, Malé’ for enable the Indian migrants to reach out for any sort of help, including food, shelter and medical facilities.
- To set-up a free COVID – 19 testing facility at the Indian Mission at Malé for the Indian Migrants.
- To constitute and send a special medical team to Maldives to provide the adequate medical treatments for the stranded Indian national at Maldives, along with the facility to reach out all the Indian Nationals who are in other Islands apart from Male the capital City.
- To ensure Food and Hygienic Quarantine Accommodation for Indian Migrants at Maldives.
- To airlift the Indian Migrants to India, whoever wanted to get repatriated in order to protect themselves from the pathological consequences due to spread of COVID19, on government expenditure.
The petitioner informed the Court that in respect of repatriation of the students from Kazakhstan, the Ministry of External Affairs was pleased to appoint a Special Nodal Officer to coordinate with the concerned official of the said Country and similar exercise may also be taken by the Ministry in respect of the stranded Indian Nationals at Maldives and prayed for emergent orders.
Acting upon the plea, the division bench comprising of Justice M. Sathyanarayanan & Justice M. Nirmal Kumar, issued notice to the Central Government and Ambassador of Maldives in India and directed the case o be listed on 12th of May for further hearing.
-India Legal Bureau