The Delhi High Court Tuesday closed the proceedings in a batch of pleas relating to the COVID-19 situation in the national capital, including testings and infrastructure. A bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad said, we will close the proceedings with liberty to parties to approach the court in case of any grievance.
In 2021, the high court, on its own, revived a disposed of petition filed in 2020 by advocate Rakesh Malhotra related to COVID-19 testings and infrastructure. While reviving the matter, the high court had noted that the virus has raised its ugly head once again and the pandemic is raging with much greater intensity, and "it is evident that the healthcare infrastructure is at the stage of imminent collapse".
Initially, when Malhotra filed the petition in 2020, it had sought for increasing the COVID-19 testing numbers in the national capital and getting speedy results. Later, the ambit of the proceedings was widened and the court continued to monitor how authorities tackled the pandemic, especially during the second wave of COVID-19 last year.
The high court, which had last year conducted a marathon hearing for 45 days including proceedings till late night during the peak of the second wave, had sought the Centre's stand on setting up a buffer stock of liquid medical oxygen in the national capital in case of another wave even as the AAP government submitted that it has 419 metric tonnes of it.
It had also taken strong exception to the prosecution of political leaders who as good samaritans arranged oxygen for the patients when both the Centre and Delhi government failed to provide sufficient medical oxygen to people during the second wave of COVID-19. In these proceedings, the high court dealt with various issues, including shortage of medical oxygen, medicines, hospital beds, black marketing of medicines and oxygen cylinders, infrastructure in hospitals, and black fungus.
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