Queency
A bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice G S Kulkarni, while hearing several petitions including one sue moto, has directed the Maharashtra government to follow the Centre’s SoP (standard operating procedures) to vaccinate all prison inmate, including those who don’t have an Aadhar card.
The state as well union government informed the High Court regarding the SoP’s and assignment of district task forces to register those group of people on CoWIN portal who don’t have an valid ID proof and ensuring that such people are vaccinated, thereby making it possible even for the prison inmates to vaccinated by this procedure.
While noticing that almost one third posts of medical officers were vacant, the court said, “You (state) say you have doctors, but then you’ll have to show us how the strength is spread over all correctional facilities. In these difficult times, one-third is vacant”.
The bench while seeking reply from the state, told that as per Centre’s rules, all prison has to have requisite and able medical staff but the affidavit of the state remains silent on the same.
The High court also said that in Taloja Prison, there were only 3 Ayurveda doctors while in Kolhapur, Amravati, Yerwada, Nagpur, Mumbai central prison, there were no MBBS doctors despite the fact that the prisons must have MBBS doctors as well as paramedical staff.
While the Yewada Prison in Pune, for a total of 8000 inmates, had no doctor available there; the court said, “Already one year of the pandemic is over. In these times, you can’t depend on the already burdened state-run hospitals. All jails must have at least the sanctioned posts filled,”
The matter is listed for further hearing on 19th May.