High Court pulls up Telangana State on Covid crisis, says figures being fudged

HYDERABAD: Going by the Covid-related details given by the Telangana government and the ‘confusing’ statements from ministers and bureaucrats about medication and oxygen supply, the Telangana High Court on Friday observed that the state government was not being candid enough in dealing with the second wave of Covid-19.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Hima Kohli and Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy observed that it would appear that the details submitted by the government to the court on Covid testing, availability of beds, oxygen, medicines and mortality rate are a “sackful of salt, window-dressing and fudged numbers.”

“On one hand, the secretary to medical and health appeared before the court two days ago and said the state is fully equipped with beds, infrastructure, oxygen and life-saving medicines to treat the Covid-infected. On the other, your health minister says the state faced more than 120 tonnes of oxygen deficiency due to the failure of the Union government to supply it, and complains that the Centre is not fair enough in sending the required medicine stocks and vaccination doses. Which contention should be trusted? How such a paucity of oxygen and medicines in one day? Is it that the situation became critical within a day,” Chief Justice Kohli asked the government.

Advising the government that it should be candid enough, the court said that the state might be looking at things in terms of revenues and expenses. But when the life of the citizens is in danger, it should be given utmost importance.

The bench was dealing with the batch of petitions related to Covid management.

The court also criticised the Union government's strict controls vis-à-vis allocation of medicines and oxygen to states.

“You (Union government) take over even the vaccines and medicines manufactured in the state. You don't give to the state what they require and dole them out to other states. Where are the citizens of the Telangana state to go when there is a demand and necessity,” observed CJ Kohli.

“In the last 10 days, only 21,500 remdesivir vials were distributed to Telangana, whereas the demand is very high. We need an answer from the central government,” the CJ observed and directed assistant solicitor general Namavarapu Rajeshwara Rao, representing the Centre, to come with details immediately.

But, post lunch session, additional solicitor general Surya Karan Reddy came in and requested a day’s time to submit the details.

The assistant solicitor general complained against the Telangana state government, saying that it was not attentive enough in appointing a nodal officer as suggested by the Centre to co-ordinate. The court asked the state why such a delay and advised it to make the appointment in a day’s time.

Finding fault with the state government for its “all is well” type of contentions and submissions and stating the situation is under control, the court said “It was a dismal performance by the state, where the people are afraid to go to hospitals, and even if they go, beds are not be available and RT-PCR test reports are being demanded for entry to the hospitals.

“In which ivory tower we are living? Go to the ground level, where the Below Poverty Line and middle class people are suffering to get admission to hospitals and patients dying at the hospitals’ doors and hospitals could not admit patients. A major concern is also the non-availability of medicines in government hospitals. Even I came across one such issue, one person accessed me for medicine (remdesivir and another life-saving drug), which is not available in hospitals. Even I couldn't help them,” Chief Justice Kohli observed.

The CJ also observed that the figures of the government about the fatality rate due to Covid were fudged. “You are saying only 198 deaths in last 20 days, that too in Hyderabad. It would be (much more). Nobody is there at crematorium to say how many bodies are getting cremated. We are getting reports that bodies were being burnt by putting all together in one go due to scarcity of wood. You (bureaucrats) are sitting somewhere and saying that ‘no such situation is there’. Why don’t you go and figure out as to how many bodies are burnt or buried in the crematorums,” CJ Kohli asked.

The court also pointed to the flaws in submissions related to RT-PCR tests. The state government has said it was conducting 30,000 to 40,000 tests in a day, whereas reports say only 3.57 lakh tests were conducted in the last 21 days. But around 8.4 lakh tests were to be conducted as per the submissions.”

The court also asked why the five-member expert committee did not hold a meeting in the last two months to suggest the steps to curtail spread of the virus.

In three hours of virtual adjudication, the court faulted the governmental perspective vis-a-vis issues like allowing political rallies and gatherings for the upcoming municipal elections, non-declaration of containment and micro-containment zones, lack of efforts to assuage the feelings of migrant workers and urge them not to leave their places of work, laxity in conducting raids to catch the hoarders, black-marketers of life-saving drugs, and lack of efforts to cleanly maintain the Covid care centres.

While adjourning the batch of PILs to April 27, the court directed the state government to inform the court of its preparedness for administering vaccination to all those who have crossed 18 years from May 1 as per the notification issued by the Centre.

The secretary to health and family welfare of Telangana, Rizvi, has been directed to file a status Report by April 27 indicating the state’s steps in administering the vaccines to prison inmates, senior citizens in old-age homes, the destitute staying in shelter homes and open spaces, and occupants of orphanages and homes for the visually disabled. 

The court suggested to the government that the advisories did not mean that a state government cannot take its own call based on the emerging situations. “So, ramp up the tests and procure all the medicines to treat the Covid-infected.”