Delhi HC refutes making request to AAP govt for COVID facility; seeks withdrawal of order

On Tuesday, the Delhi High Court refuted having made any request to the AAP government for using a 5-star hotel as a COVID-19 centre exclusively for judges. The division bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli took suo moto cognizance of the Delhi government's order to convert 100 rooms of the Ashoka Hotel for setting up a COVID-19 health facility for the use of judges, other judicial officers and their families. This move had come in for a lot of criticism from a lot of people including Congress Rajya Sabha MP and senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi and BJP leader Kapil Mishra.

The bench clarified, "The meeting was regarding judges of subordinate judiciary who have to go to Court. Two Judicial Officers have already died. All that we wanted was, in case they need admission, it may be provided. And that has been converted to such an order. You don’t have oxygen, and you are talking about having 100 beds facility for us. It's unfortunate." 

Slamming the Arvind Kejriwal-led government for passing orders right, left and centre, it asked, "Can we as an institution say that create a special facility for us? Will this not be blatantly discriminatory that people can’t get treatment and there is a facility in a five-star hotel for us?" Questioning whether this was an attempt to appease the court, it also rejected the Delhi government's counsel Rahul Mehra's argument that the media played a mischievous role in interpreting the order. The court stressed that it was the order and not the media that was wrong.

Observing that it is unthinkable that the Delhi HC as an institution will want any preferential treatment, it noted that advocate Santosh Tripathi has accepted notice on behalf of the Delhi government and wishes to file a reply. Warning that the HC will quash the order if it is not withdrawn, it listed this matter for hearing on April 29. At present, there are 92,358 active novel coronavirus cases in the national capital while 9,40,930 patients have been discharged and 14,628 deaths were reported.

Contentious order

The aforesaid order dated April 25 was issued by Sub-Divisional Magistrate (Chanakyapuri) Geeta Grover. In a huge claim, it stated that a request has been received from the Delhi HC for setting up a COVID Health Centre for judges, judicial officers and their families. It added that the Primus Hospital shall run this facility at the Ashoka Hotel and will manage the biomedical waste disposal and ambulance for transfer facility amongst other responsibilities. On the other hand, the hotel will provide services such as housekeeping, disinfection and food for the patients. Moreover, it specified that non-compliance with this order will attract penal action.