Court steps in to contain Covid-19

Issues riders for Holi celebrations, rallies

As more possible positive cases of Covid-19 are found in the state and it spreads its wings through different cities in the country, the Telangana High Court on Wednesday directed the state government to be cautious in giving permissions for public gatherings and assemblies, whether for festivities or protests.

The court ordered the state to take preventive and curative steps to not further adversely affect the number of infections. The court also advised the issuing of advisories to all state departments to be careful and has given advisories to the lower courts in the state.

A division bench, comprising chief justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice A. Abhishek Reddy, was dealing a PIL which sought directions from the court to order the state government to prohibit the conduct of celebrations of Holi festival in the coming week, to prevent the spread of the virus.

The court, while adjudicating the PIL, asked the state to conduct meetings with all the stake holders of the state along with DG, prisons, today in the evening to develop an action plan to tackle the spread of the virus.

Further, the court asked the state to make sure that no undertrial prisoner should be produced before the trial court, unless it is found necessary by the concerned authorities. It also directed the state judiciary not to take adverse steps against any accused on the grounds that they do not appear before the court.

The court requested the members of the high court bar association and the bar associations of the lower courts in the state to tell their parties/clients not to come to the court unless it is absolutely necessary. The court also directed the registry of the high court to make masks available at the reception of the high court free of cost.

However, the bench said that the court can’t prohibit any celebration of festivals. The court appointed S. Niranjan Reddy, designated senior counsel as amicus curie, to assist the court to proceed further on the covid19 issue.

Reddy informed the court that two more covid19 cases have been detected in Hyderabad and 17 contacts out of 36 are found with early symptoms.

It may be recalled that before the finding of positive cases of Covid-19 in the state, the High Court had asked the state to take war-footing steps to combat it and had enquired whether thermal scanners had been set up in railway and bus stations to detect virus-affected persons entering into Telangana state.

In an advisory to the lower Judiciary, on the direction of Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan, the High Court registrar general issued a circular asking not to insist on the presence of litigants and accused in cases and to take steps to reduce footfall in the court premises. He directed the unit heads of the lower judiciary to take necessary steps to keep the court premises clean and sanitised and to depute at least two doctors at the district court and distribute preventive homeopathic pills for the Covid-19.