The Delhi High Court has junked a petition seeking direction to the Railways to provide concession in fares to cancer patients travelling in Rajdhani Express.
The petition was moved by an NGO and sought the relief on the ground that since most hospitals specialising in cancer treatment are in metropolitan cities and patients from far-off areas connected by Rajdhani have to travel for treatment, concession in fares would reduce the burden on them.
‘For publicity’
A Bench headed by Chief Justice G. Rohini also questioned the public interest involved in the petition and said that the petitioner can make a representation before the Railway Ministry in this regard. “You (petitioner) are just doing this for publicity,” the court told the NGO.
The Bench rejected the argument that such a relief will cut the financial burden on patients and said it would have entertained the petition had it come from a patient.
“Let any aggrieved person come, then we will hear the petition,” the Bench said.
The plea had stated there “are only about 1,000 trained oncologists in India with most of them in cities, and the ratio of oncologists to cancer patients being about 1:2,000. The patient load is more in smaller towns”.
