NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Tuesday an appeal filed by the Delhi government against the Delhi High Court’s order staying its decision to reserve 80 per cent ICU beds in 33 private hospitals for Covid-19 patients.
A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and B R Gavai will take up the Delhi government’s plea for hearing on a vacation. The SC is on Diwali break this week.
A single judge bench of the High Court on September 22 had stayed the Delhi government’s September 12 decision saying that asking 33 big private hospitals to reserve 80 per cent of ICU beds for Covid-19 patients would violate the fundamental rights of those having other health conditions.
The government has already challenged the stay order before a division bench of the High Court which has was to be heard on November 27.
While staying the government’s order, the High Court had come down heavily on it.
“The state cannot discriminate between a Covid-19 and a non-Covid-19 patient requiring emergent treatment. In time of emergency, such patients cannot be told to run around finding a hospital where beds have not been reserved for COVID-19 patients. The disease itself cannot be a ground for such discrimination,’ the single judge bench had said.
(With PTI inputs)