COURTESY TOI JULY 21

Heads will roll, warns HC as it slams T govt’s Covid work
Tells CS, Other Officials To Be In HC On July 28
SagarKumar.Mutha@timesgroup.com

Hyderabad:

Making no bones about its displeasure over government’s handling of Covid-19 cases, the Telangana high court on Monday summoned chief secretary Somesh Kumar, GHMC commissioner DS Lokesh Kumar, public health director and senior officials to be present in the court on July 28.

Expressing concern over the rapid surge in Covid-19 cases in Hyderabad and districts, the court said the situation in the state was turning from bad to worse. A bench of Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy gave one week’s time to the authorities to buck up and implement its orders on ramping up Covid-19 testing and disseminating information on the pattern of the spread.

The judges said any laxity on the part of the officials hereafter would result in the guillotine falling on their necks and heads would start rolling. Referring to a news report published in TOI on cases shooting up in the districts, the judges wanted to know whether hospitals were ready to deal with the spurt. They also directed authorities to reimpose lockdowns in short spells to check the spread of the virus.

Hearing scores of petitions on the virus spread, lack of testing and beds in hospitals, the judges asked: “There is a talk that by coming September half of the global population will be affected by the coronavirus. That means two crore cases in Telangana. Are we ready to face it? We are not clear where we stand when the cases are less than a lakh.”

T govt wants people to live in the dark: Judges

At this point, advocate general BS Prasad conceded that lifting of lockdown had resulted in a nationwide spurt. The judges immediately reminded him about Karnataka deciding to impose a 10-day lockdown in Bengaluru again.

“Why don’t you (government) go for lockdowns for shorter periods and in specific areas,” they sought to know. The AG assured the court that the government would rectify all the shortfalls and combat the virus. Turning critical towards the authorities for ignoring the directions of the court despite repeated reminders for their implementation, the judges said: “The state government is blissfully ignoring them. It wants people to grope in the dark and live in the bliss of ignorance.” Pressing the issue further, the judges reminded that the government, in the medical bulletins issued in June, had said that the incidence of Covid-19 was found more in the age group of 21 to 34 years. “Till then we were told that only children below 10 and older people above 60 were vulnerable. This information needs to be disseminated so that youngsters will also start taking precautions,” the judges said. “Similarly in GHMC areas, the authorities should alert people about where the incidence of Covid is thick and where it is thin. The figures should be shared with residential colony associations and the media on a regular basis. This direction too has been ignored,” they pointed out. “Ensure that all the critical information is published by regional media, TV media and also the English press.”

The court also summoned principal secretaries of municipal administration and health departments and director of medical education to appear before it on July 28