HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court on Thursday issued a contempt notice to Director of Public Health G Srinivasa Rao, seeking an explanation as to why action should not be taken against him under the Contempt of Court Act for intentionally, willfully and deliberately disobeying its order on Covid-19 testing. It granted him two weeks to furnish an explanation. The court took serious view of the non-implementation of its earlier order, wherein it had directed the government to conduct 50,000 tests a day and up to one lakh once a week.
Further, the Telangana High Court cautioned the Telangana government that it will be in a soup by the time it realises that the second wave of the pandemic has hit the State. It is surprising to see hundreds of people gathering at political meetings for the GHMC election. They are not wearing masks, nor maintaining social distance. The second wave will hit the State hard and the government seems unprepared, the bench said.
The State administration has to wake up in the light of the circumstances prevailing in Kerala and Delhi, which have been engulfed in the second wave. Unless GO 64, dated May 7, 2020, is implemented seriously, it is rather unlikely that the people will observe safety precautions in a disciplined manner. “You do not start digging up a well when your house is on fire,” the court told the State administration. A division bench of the court, comprising Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy, said this while dealing with a batch of PILs which sought directions to the government to provide medical equipment, medicines and staff at Covid-19 hospitals.
After perusing the report submitted by the Director of Public Health, the bench termed it vague and cleverly drafted. The report states that the number of tests would be increased to 50,000 per day and one lakh once a week “as and when the demand arises”.
As per the report, Telangana has not touched 50,000 tests per day in the last six days despite the court order. It has also failed to provide RT-PCR kits to all district hospitals, the bench pointed out.Apologising for failing to implement the order, Srinivasa Rao said the government has been making efforts to check the virus and is following the ICMR guidelines.
The bench directed the State to constitute an expert committee, in line with the recent orders of the Supreme Court. It told it to consider constituting a Dead Audit committee similar to that of the Andhra Pradesh government. The bench directed Advocate General BS Prasad to submit a detailed report on the issue and posted the matter to December 17 for further hearing.
HC directs TS to test more, follow its orders
There is a clear-cut relation between the number of tests conducted and the discovery of +ve cases. Unless a large section of the population is tested, the actual spread of Covid can never be discovered, the court noted. The State is duty-bound to follow the court’s orders, it said