The case of black marketing and illegal hoarding of hand sanitizers and face masks came up today for hearing before the Supreme Court. The petitioners are seeking intervention of the court to ensure the sale of masks and sanitizers on control price as prescribed and have also asked for free distribution of face masks and other essential commodities.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appearing for the Central Government assured the apex court that the government is looking into the said matter and would publish and publicize helpline numbers for the effective implementation of its notification- controlling the price of the said Masks and sanitizers.
The petition filed by ‘Justice for Rights Foundation’ through its president Satyam Singh Rajput, Advocate Amit Kumar Sharma and Prateek Sharma a final year law student from Delhi University acknowledged before the court that steps have been taken government, but the same lacks timely and effective implementation, which is required to be done in order to control the spread of pandemic COVID-19. The petitioner pleaded that the telephone numbers of the concerned officials and police officials may be made public and the authorities may be directed to take immediate and strict action in this regard of black-marketing and hoarding of masks and sanitizers.
Acting upon the plea, the division bench of Justice L. Nageswara Rao & Justice Deepak Gupta directed the Government to take all necessary steps to publicise the notification and that action are immediately and strictly taken against the violators.
-India Legal Bureau