PMC left red-faced: Claims of bed availability dashed by Bombay HC

The Bombay High Court bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Girish Kulkarni, on Wednesday, called out the bluff by Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) minutes after it told the judges that it had sufficient number of beds vacant for treating COVID-19 patients. The high court made two counsels call on the helpline number of PMC only to learn that no beds were indeed available.

The PMC was left red-faced after its claim of over 2,000 beds being available turned out to be wrong. Advocate Abhijit Kulkarni, for the PMC, submitted an affidavit, detailing the active cases, bed availability and other aspects pertaining to the COVID-19 cases in Pune city. This was in pursuance to a directive by the bench in an earlier hearing, wherein the judges had noted the ‘alarming’ situation in Pune. Kulkarni told the judges that PMC had conducted the highest number of tests in Maharashtra with over 20,000 tests being conducted on a daily basis.

CJ Datta, however, pointed out that BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has conducted more than 28,000 tests earlier. To this, Kulkarni replied, "We (PMC) cannot compare with Bombay. Our population is around 40 lakh and we have till now tested samples of over 22 lakh citizens."

During the hearing, the bench noted, from the affidavit of PMC, that there are over 2,000 beds vacant in various civic hospitals in Pune. However, advocate Rajesh Inamdar, for one of the petitioners, disputed the claim and said he cross-checked with the dashboard shown on the PMC website and the numbers are different.