MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday directed the Maharashtra government to file an affidavit explaining the rationale behind prohibiting the people, who are yet to receive any anti-coronavirus vaccine dose, from using the suburban rail services in the city.
A bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice M S Karnik directed the Maharashtra chief secretary to file an affidavit, setting out the rationale behind differentiating between the vaccinated and unvaccinated persons when it came to travel on local trains.
The state must submit the affidavit by December 21, the high court said while hearing two petitions filed against the state government's order mandating complete vaccination for traveling on local trains.
The petitions argue that though the central government had made vaccines voluntary, the Maharashtra government was going against the same by putting citizens in a situation where they mandatorily had to get vaccinated.
This violated the fundamental rights of citizens, the petitioners said.
The state government, however, told the high court that such a prohibition was not a breach of the citizens' fundamental rights as they were only barred from traveling on local trains.
They were permitted to travel by private vehicles irrespective of their vaccination status, the state government submitted.
It further said that all COVID-related restrictions on citizens were not to inconvenience them, but were meant as preventive measures to check the spread of the virus.
"The broader issue is of curtailing the fundamental rights of citizens who cannot avail the suburban local services and the rationale has to be explained by the state government and its state disaster management authority," the high court said.
"We require the chief secretary of the state by Tuesday to file affidavit setting forth the rationale behind the division between vaccinated and non-vaccinated persons," it said.
The high court will hear the plea further on December 22.