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New Delhi:
The Delhi High Court on Thursday warned the Delhi Health Minister and the Health Secretary for failure to comply with judicial orders regarding promulgation of laws regulating clinic establishments and warned that they could be sent to jail.
The high court told Health Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj and Health Minister SB Deepak Kumar, who were present at the proceedings, that they were “servants of the government” and could not have “arrogance”.
The court had asked Mr Bharadwaj and Mr Kumar to appear before him in February after perusing an email that said the minister was not informed during a discussion of the Delhi Health Institutions (Registration and Regulation) Bill.
“We are disturbed that the petitioner has highlighted the plight of a common man. He told us that various untrue and incorrect lab reports are being generated and the common man is suffering. But this is your game you two The ongoing competition between people and factions is unacceptable to the court.
A bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet PS Arora said, “You have to take practical action to ensure that the touts do not benefit from the fight between these two persons” and asked them not to indulge on “brinkmanship”.
The judge said that if the minister and secretary were incompetent to deal with the issue and continued to bicker, the court would ask a third party to deal with the matter or pass an order to decide what must be done.
“Don’t do this to us or you both will go to jail. If ordinary people benefit from this, we will not hesitate to send you both to jail. Neither of you can be too conceited, you are both servants” The government and you both must Ensure that ordinary people benefit. What are you doing? People were getting wrong reports on their blood samples,” it said.
The high court is hearing a petition filed in 2018 by Bejon Kumar Misra, represented by advocate Shashank Deo Sudhi, who alleged that there were unauthorized laboratories and diagnostic centers in the national capital with unqualified technicians and providing incorrect medicines to patients. Report.
As the minister said, the Delhi Health Bill was finalized in May 2022 and the High Court asked why it has not been sent to the Center for approval.
The court said if this takes time, the Delhi government should consider implementing a central government regulation – the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act, 2010.
Infuriated by Mr Bharadwaj’s submission that the court’s leniency would help the government enact the bill, the court said: “You consider us pawns in this game and you will use this as a strategy. We don’t belong to anyone.” pawn, correct the misunderstanding that you will use the court process.”
The petitioners argued in court that the city’s pathology laboratories were unregulated and posed a threat to the lives of citizens.
“Such illegal laboratories continue to mushroom in and around Delhi-NCT and it can be easily estimated that the total number of such illegal pathology and diagnostic laboratories may be anywhere between 20,000 to 25,000 per lane in the national capital,” the plea said. There are laboratories like this on the streets.” Illegal pathology laboratories. “
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
