THD NewsDesk, New Delhi: The Delhi High Court issued a show cause notice to the Central government over “non compliance” with the orders of the Supreme Court from last Saturday. The SC ordered the Centre to provide 700 metric tonnes of medical oxygen immediately to the state.
The high court ordered Piyush Goyal and Sumita Dawra, additional secretaries in the ministries of home affairs and industrial promotion to be present on Wednesday to answer the notice.
The notice was also over the “non compliance” with the SC’s order to the centre to solve the issue of oxygen shortage in the Capital city on or before midnight of May 3.
The high court remarked,
“You can put your head in sand like ostrich, we will not.”
It added,
“During the course of the hearing, it has been brought to our notice that Delhi has still not received 700 metric tonnes (MT) of oxygen even though the Supreme Court had directed compliance by the Union of India by midnight on May 3.”
It also noted,
“We fail to understand what good compliance affidavit would do when 700 MTs oxygen is not being delivered to Delhi. Even 590 MTs per day has not been delivered for a single day.”
Though the Centre says that no direct order of the said amount of oxygen was asked to be delivered in the state, a complete reading of the order speaks a different story.
“Supreme Court also took note of the allocation in favour of Delhi which was 490 MTs, which is sufficient to show that it directed that the Delhi government should be given 700 MTs. It pains us that the aspect of supply of oxygen for the treatment of Covid-19 patients in Delhi should be viewed from the way it has been done by the Central government” said the high court.
Many hospitals in the city have reached out to the Delhi High court complaining about the shortage of oxygen. Moreover, everyday cases are being reported of Covid 19 patients losing their lives due to the lack of oxygen supply in the hospitals. And in an extreme situation like this, the act of the Centre cannot be justified and the Delhi high court is holding the Centre accountable for it.
Source: The Hindustan Times
