It’s a tsunami, will hang any person blocking oxygen supplies: High Court
NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court on Saturday asked the Centre and the Delhi government about their preparedness to deal with the peak of the second Covid wave expected by mid-May, terming the mounting cases a “tsunami” and warning that it will “hang any person” who tries to obstruct oxygen supplies to hospitals.
Talking tough, a bench of justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli said this during a special three-hour hearing on the escalating crisis in city hospitals on a day when 20 patients died at Delhi’s Jaipur Golden Hospital for lack of oxygen. The bench asked both the Centre and the Delhi government to “interact and co-ordinate” with each other for ensuring adequate supply of oxygen.
The Centre called the Delhi government a “cry baby” before the court and said it was the latter’s “incompetence” that led to the deaths of people. Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, asked the Delhi government to manage the procurement and distribution of oxygen on their own and not depend on the Centre for everything.
Mehta said the state governments were responsible for the transportation of the oxygen from various sources and the Delhi government had to do it on its own.
“So far we have ensured that nobody in the country was left without oxygen. States and Union territories which do not have industries have also arranged for tanks but the Delhi government has yet not coordinated with the suppliers,” Mehta said.
The bench questioned the Delhi government over its citing of the shortage of cryogenic tankers to procure oxygen from Durgapur, Rourkela and Kalinganagar.
“We make it clear that the efforts the GNCTD (government of the national capital territory of Delhi) has to make in this regard cannot be trivialised, and they should not leave it entirely to the central government to act in this regard,” the court recorded in its order while directing the Delhi government to arrange tankers and other logistics for timely procurement of oxygen.