Delhi HC issues notice to Centre over Haryana's order restricting movement of essentials

The Delhi High Court on Friday has issued a notice to the Centre seeking intervention in Haryana government's order to restrict the movement of essential services and obstructing movement of doctors and nurses from Delhi to Haryana. It asked the Centre and Haryana government to file a reply and listed the matter for further hearing on May 12.

A bench of Justices Manmohan and Sanjeev Narula, conducting a hearing via video conferencing asserted that the orders of the Sonipat district magistrate restricting the movement is against the orders issued by the Union Home Secretary on lockdown guidelines.

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"Prima facie, this Court is of the view that the order dated 30th April, 2020 of District Magistrate, Sonipat, prevents and obstructs the movement of trucks from Delhi to Sonipat as well as the movement of Doctors, Nurses, Court officials etc. to and from Delhi to Sonipat. Accordingly, this Court is of the prima facie view that the order dated 30th April, 2020 by the District Magistrate, Sonipat, constitutes an infringement of Articles 19(1)(d) and 301 of the Constitution of India especially when the entire National Capital and Sonipat are not containment zones," the court noted in its order.

The bench referred to an order of the Kerala High Court which has held, "No doubt, restrictions may be imposed in times of a national emergency such as the present, but when the guidelines issued by the Central Government under the Disaster Management Act itself permits travel for urgent medical treatment, then the said guidelines have necessarily to be enforced by the Central Government through the removal of the blockades that prevent such travel."

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Petitioner OP Gupta submitted that a number of Delhi residents have to travel to Sonipat for essential work and similar is the situation for Sonipat residents. He said the district magistrate of Sonipat has imposed blanket cross border transit restrictions between the two cities and granted exemptions to only a few categories of government officials and for movement of goods not destined for there.

(With input from agencies)