The High Court of Karnataka on Monday ordered issue of notice to the State government on a PIL petition seeking inquiry into the alleged irregularities in selection and exclusion of private hospitals to treat COVID-19 patients and the withdrawal of the June 2020 order on allowing private hospitals to treat COVID-19 patients.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Aravind Kumar passed the order on a petition filed by Riyaz Basha, a medical practitioner from Shivamogga.
Alleging that private hospitals were selected without following any sort of guidelines, the petitioner said some of the hospitals were selected as they belonged to relatives of Ministers, MLAs, and politicians. The petitioner also alleged that “influences and money transactions” had taken place in the matter of selection and dropping of hospitals from the list of designated COVD-19 hospitals and care and isolation centres.
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He claimed that in some cities and town, only hi-tech hospitals were selected, leaving out the smaller hospitals having all the basic facilities to treat COVID-19 patients. In some places, hospitals having no proper facilities and staff were chosen instead of the ones with good facilities to provide treatment, the petitioner alleged.
Food supply
Meanwhile, the Bench, hearing other PIL petitions related to issues that have cropped up because of COVID-19 restrictions, directed the government to submit comprehensive details on the supply of nutritional food through anganwadi centres across the State. It sought data from the start of the lockdown in March to November 30.
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The Bench also asked S.R. Umashankar, Principal Secretary, Primary and Secondary Education, to be present in court through videoconference hearing on December 8 as the State government had not complied with the advice of the Centre on the transfer of cooking cost in the form of nutritional pulses and other products, along with foodgrains, to the children covered under the midday meal scheme.