The Delhi High Court on Thursday declined to entertain a petition seeking audit of private hospitals being run by charitable trusts on concessional land given by the government, alleging that they were charging COVID-19 patients heavily.
A Bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Talwant Singh said the petition did not have any necessary particulars as to how the trusts and private hospitals were conniving to siphon off money or how much money has been siphoned off. It gave the petitioner-lawyer liberty to move the court with a fresh plea which would have all the necessary details.
The petitioner, Shobha Gupta, urged the High Court to adjourn the matter to January 2021 so that she can get all necessary details and amend her plea. However, the court said that she would have to rewrite her entire petition and hence, it would be better to file a fresh one.
Ms. Gupta had sought audit of 11 private hospitals in the Capital, which, according to her, are run on concessional government land by charitable trusts. The plea had alleged that the trusts, in collaboration with the private hospitals, are involved in transmission of huge amounts of money for personal purpose.
It had also claimed that private hospitals have unreasonably increased the prices of beds, room rent, PPE kits, sanitisers and are also charging more than MRP for basic medicines.
