Today Supreme Court pf India asked to see a “national plan” on oxygen supply, essential drugs and method of vaccination and served notice to the Centre on a day India recorded the world’s biggest surge in Covid cases – 3.14 lakh cases and over 2,104 deaths in a single day.
We want to see the national plan on this issue said Chief Justice of India SA Bobde. The hearing will take place tomorrow.
The Supreme Court is dealing with the case at a time six High Courts across the country are hearing related petitions involving the crisis of oxygen, beds and the anti-viral drug Remdesivir in hospitals.
We want to know. In regard to the four issues of supply of oxygen, supply of essential drugs, method and manner of vaccination and we want to keep the power to declare lockout with the states, said CJI Bobde.
We wish to take suo motu cognisance of certain issues we find in six High Courts – Delhi, Bombay, Sikkim, Madhya Pradesh, Calcutta and Allahabad. Now they are exercising their jurisdiction in best interest. There are some kind of confusion and diversion of resources.
In another hearing on Vedanta’s petition to open its closed copper plant in Tamil Nadu for the production of oxygen, Chief Justice Bobde added that the current situation is like national emergency. For three days, the Delhi High Court has been hearing emergency requests for oxygen and other resources from the city government and various hospitals in the city.
Two emergency hearings at the Delhi High Court ended late last night after an oxygen tanker left for a hospital of the Max Group, the city’s biggest hospital chain, which had approached the court pleading for help as it was almost out of oxygen for its Covid patients.
