High Court pulls up Telangana government on Covid testing

Hyderabad: Expressing its displeasure over the manner in which the State government had handled the Covid-19 situation, the High Court on Wednesday directed the Chief Secretary, Principal Secretary, Medical and Health department, Principal Secretary, MAUD and Commissioner GHMC to appear before the court on July 20. The Bench headed by the Chief Justice lamented that the state government had not implemented its orders. For the last two months, the High Court has been passing orders repeatedly on Covid-19 and also issuing a series of instructions but it has fallen on deaf ears, the Bench said, expressing its deep discontent.

The State cannot ignore or complicate its constitutional duties towards its people. Hearing on a tag of public interest litigations on Covid-19, the Bench of Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice Bollam Vijaysen Reddy said that needless to say by fighting a battle against the pandemic, if any ignorance was shown it would be an invitation to a calamity.

The court observed that there was mismatch in the data supplied by the government and the information available in the media pertaining to the number of cases and tests conducted. It, in fact, presents a disturbing picture, the court said. Earlier, the High Court directed the government to publish the critical information on a daily basis in the media but this too was not implemented, they said.

The data submitted to the High Court shows that the number of tests conducted in Telangana as compared to other states was much less. The ICMR had repeatedly emphasized on the need to collect the samples as widely as possible and as large as the population is possible. But according to the press note 25-6-20 the Director, Public Health and Family Welfare had decided to halt the collection of samples in testing for two days, it is rather surprising that the director is going against the advisory issued by the ICMR, the Bench pointed out. The evidence produced by the government reveals that the government has only formal containment policy and has stopped publishing the list of containment clusters, both city-wise and state wise.

The court further said that neither the Advocate-General nor Assistant Solicitor-General was able to inform them about the findings of the central team which visited the state many times. The court directed them to produce a report on the findings of the central team.

The court also directed the State to submit its containment policy and reveal the list of containment clusters. The vital information mentioned about Covid-19 shall be published daily by the state in the media bulletins, as well as in the regional newspapers, it added.

The state is directed to provide information on the number of tests conducted in the state from March 22 till June 13, 2020 by the Medical Department. Information on the number of people being kept in-home quarantine from March 22 till June 23, in Suryapet district and the number of positive cases treated and discharged, in Suryapet district.