HC restrains Haryana Police from filing challan against SRL lab

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana high court has restrained the Haryana Police from submitting challan against a Gurugram lab in alleged case of misreporting Covid-19 results.

The Gurugram police had on July 9 registered an FIR against SRL Diagnostics, a private lab, for the alleged incident reported in April under the Disaster Management Act.

It was on April 24 that the Ambala civil surgeon had called for an inquiry after three members of a family were reported Covid-19 positive by SRL Diagnostics. Worried about their test results, they approached the Ambala civil surgeon for a retest. Their samples were then sent to a government lab, where they tested negative in 24 hours.

A total of 15 samples were sent to PGIMS, Rohtak, all of which tested negative. The incident triggered a controversy when SRL Diagnostics rubbished the government lab results and said it stood by its report.

The lab termed its staff frontline Covid warriors and contended that it had conducted the tests with kits approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). Across the world, an error of 10-12% is being seen with respect to the diagnostic tests and as such on this count if at all, an error has crept in, though not admitted, it would be unreasonable on the part of the authorities to allege malafide intent, their counsel RS Rai had told the court.

It was argued that the FIR has been registered in haste and without any application of mind.