Lekha G
The Supreme Court on Friday by a Bench comprising of Justices DY Chandrachud and MR Shah dismissed Centre’s plea challenging Karnataka High Court order increasing the State’s oxygen supply to 1200 MT amid the raging pandemic.
Analysing the pandemic situation in Karnataka, the Bench of Chief Justice Abhay Oka and Justice Aravind Kumar passed an Order saying that, “We direct the Government of India to increase the cap on supply of oxygen to the state to 1200 MT per day from the sanctioned allocation of 965 MT”.
The Centre moved the Supreme Court by a Special Leave Petition seeking a stay on the Order issued by the High Court.
It argued that the directions passed by the Karnataka High Court could lead to mismanagement of resources and create a chaotic environment in an already overburdened system and that the Centre was working rigorously to deal with the Covid 19 crisis.
The Centre further claimed that the High Court did not accord time to justify the oxygen supply allocated to Karnataka.
The Supreme Court Bench said that the High Court order is a “Well calibrated, deliberated and judicious exercise of power after taking into account the number of Covid-19 positive cases”.
The Court further stated that, “The High Court has furnished adequate reasons for passing the ad-interim order having regard to the fact that projection of demand made by the state was a minimum of 1165 MT of LMO. The direction of the High Court is only ad-interim and it does not preclude a mutual resolution mechanism between the Centre and the State”.
It refused to accept the Centre’s contention that if every High Court starts passing orders for allocating oxygen, it would make the supply network of the country “unworkable”.
Currently, the Karnataka Government has imposed a 14-day lockdown across the state till May 11. Karnataka’s capital, Bengaluru has overtaken Mumbai in terms of active Covid cases, reporting over 23,000 cases daily on an average.