People think they are at god's mercy: Gujarat HC

The Gujarat High Court has come down heavily on the government of the state stating that “People now think that they are at god’s mercy.”

The statement was made by a division bench comprising Chief Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Bhargav Karia, while hearing a public interest litigation (PIL), the court took up suo moto.

The comment by the bench came after Gujarat Advocate General Kamal Trivedi informed the High Court about what the state Gujarat Government is doing to tackle the situation arising out of the increasing number of COVID 19 cases in the state. On hearing Trivedi’s submission, the court stated that the reality is different from the government claims. The hearing of the case was held over video-conference.

Stating that the situation is quite different than what was claimed by the Advocate General, the bench observed that there is a “trust deficit” among the people.

Over the past few days, the situation in Gujarat has deteriorated with the increasing number of COVID 19 cases, lack of hospital beds and oxygen for the COVID 19 patients and acute shortage of medicines. The disease has been taking many lives in various parts of the state and people have to wait for ten to 12 hours to cremate the fatal cases of COVID 19, as the capacity of the crematoria falls short of the number of bodies brought there.

"There is no shortage of Remdesivir (key anti-viral drug). Everything is available with you. We want results, not reasons," the HC said, on complaints of shortage of Remdesivir injections for Covid-19 patients.

The High Court also expressed concern that the COVID 19 confirmatory test—RT-PCR was taking almost five days. Chief Justice Vikram Nath said that a person wanting to undergo the test gets an appointment after three days and then it takes two days to get the test result.

Before starting the hearing, the bench announced that it was issuing two caveats. The first one was for the press. While praising the work done by the press, the bench appealed to the media to take down proper notes and report factually. This came in the light of some misreporting by a section of the media, giving an impression that the High Court was in favour of a lockdown.

The second caveat was for the people at large. The bench appealed to the people to follow all the protocols like wearing a mask, keeping distance and washing hands. It added that if there is a COVID 19 case in the family, people should not hide it, but should report it to the authorities for taking proper steps. Hiding the fact could harm other members of the family, the bench observed.