Delhi HC notice to Delhi government in plea against exclusion of asymptomatic patients

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Monday issued a notice to the Delhi government in a petition challenging the state government’s order of excluding asymptomatic patients from COVID-19 testing in the Capital. The Arvind Kejriwal-government had on June 2 issued a fresh set of testing guidelines to be followed in the city which had excluded asymptomatic patients from being tested for the extremely contagious disease.

A bench of Justice Hima Kohli and Justice Subramonium Prasad issued a notice to the Delhi government in the petition filed by Dr KK Aggarwal, President of the Heart Care Foundation of India and Padma Shree awardee, after he argued that being a notified disease, it was mandatory for all citizens to be able to get themselves tested for COVID-19.

The petition in the Delhi High Court had put forth that the order of the Delhi government excluding asymptomatic patients from the testing criteria would infringe upon a citizen’s right to health. His lawyers made the submission that the right to health under the Constitution did not simply mean the “right to not be unwell” but that it actually gave a citizen to actively have the “right to be well”.

The petition stated that asymptomatic COVID-19 patients warrant special attention as part of the government’s efforts to contain the spread of the disease as they may be construed as “silent spreaders”. The petition argued that if asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic patients are not tested and identified, then it would just be a matter of time before all of them turned symptomatic.

Dr Aggarwal’s petition also brought the court’s attention to the testing guidelines issued by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, which provides for COVID-19 testing of asymptomatic patients.