Hyderabad: Miffed with the lackadaisical attitude of the state government, the Telangana High Court on Wednesday summoned the chief secretary, the principal secretaries of the municipal administration’s medical and health departments, the director of public health, the GHMC commissioner and senior officials of the health department for an explanation. They are to appear on Thursday morning.
The division bench, comprising Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice A. Abhishek Reddy, was dealing with separate petitions by Dr M. Karuna and advocate Rapolu Bhaskar, questioning official apathy in tackling the dengue epidemic and in curbing mosquito breeders.
The bench expressed displeasure saying that the government was not expected to be slack while an epidemic was spreading across the state and several succumbing to fever. “It is a lackadaisical, half-hearted effort which is not expected, and I am not satisfied with the government action,” the Chief Justice said. “The High Court has given enough time to curb the disease’s spread.”
Referring to M. Jayamma, IInd additional 1st class judicial magistrate, Khammam, the Chief Justice said “Today, one of our judicial officers succumbed to dengue but if a tragedy strikes a bur-eaucrat’s family, God forbid, only then they will come to know our pain.”
“It is unfortunate that judicial officer’s family members were doctors but they could not save her,” the Chief Justice said.
Advocate-General B.S Prasad, in an additional affidavit said, dengue cases have decreased due to measures taken by the medical and health department. The Bench asked him how the government can say cases have reduced when in the first fortnight of October there were 408 cases.
“We don’t need machines which count the number of mosquitoes but we require machines which will kill mosquitoes,” the CJ said.
In a scathing attack, the Bench said the dengue mosquito will not distinguish between a bureaucrat and a poor man when it stings.
Referring to the plague which devastated Europe in early 1300s and claimed lakhs of lives including two Popes, the CJ observed: “When the plague struck, it did not distinguish between a common man and a Pope. It does not distinct between the pauper and the King”.
