Can’t enable hospitals to prosper at price of human lives: SC pulls up Gujarat
2 min read The Supreme Court on Monday took critical exception to the Gujarat authorities giving hospitals and nursing houses working with out requisite fireplace security clearance extra time to adjust to the norms and mentioned that it had already directed in December, 2020, that fireplace audits be performed in hospitals and deficiencies rectified.
A bench of Justices D Y Chandradchud and M R Shah mentioned that “once there is a mandamus of the Court, it is well settled that it cannot be overridden, and less so by an executive notification”.
“You can’t, by an executive notification, nullify a direction of the Supreme Court like this”, mentioned Justice Chandrachud.
The court docket was referring to a July 8, 2021 notification of the Gujarat Urban Development and Urban Housing Department, giving hospitals and nursing houses time until the top of June 2022 to adjust to the norms.
The court docket mentioned the order was tantamount to saying these hospitals is not going to must adjust to the order until the given time when the court docket had in December final 12 months requested Covid care hospitals that had not obtained No Objection Certificates (NOCs) from the state fireplace division to instantly apply for a similar.
“You have been extending the deadline, which cannot be done in view of our December 18, 2020 order”, the court docket informed the Gujarat authorities counsel.
Justice Chandrachud remarked that “hospitals have become a large industry now based on human distress. We cannot allow them to prosper at the cost of human lives. Let such hospitals not operate in buildings with four rooms. Let such hospitals be closed and allow the state to create better health care facilities”.
“Let not the impression go that the state is shielding such hospitals,” added Justice Shah.
The December 2018 route was issued within the wake of sufferers in blazes in hospitals in Rajkot and Ahmedabad. The bench had then identified that 16 notices have been despatched to a hospital in Rajkot however nothing got here out of it.
On Monday, the court docket additionally questioned a report by a fee on the problem of fireplace security in hospitals being filed in a sealed cowl and mentioned “it is not a nuclear secret but just a report. Why in a sealed cover?”
