State did not respect our sentiments: Bombay HC after Maha govt refuses to relax curbs against unvaccinated – India Today

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday expressed displeasure over the Maharashtra government’s decision to continue to bar unvaccinated and partially vaccinated passengers from public transport. The High Court said that the government did not “respect” the sentiments expressed by the court when it had first heard petitions challenging the vaccine mandates for public transport.

“We made a mistake and expressed hope that the government would take the decision. Even in the DGP matter, we could have passed an order. This is the lesson that the government has given to the court. You do not respect the court’s sentiments. We will remember this next time,’’ said Chief Justice Dipankar Datta of the Bombay High Court.

Advocate Anil Anturkar, representing the Maharashtra government, told the court that the Covid task force had opined that the restrictions could not be lifted at this stage. He said that the state was within its constitutional right to take such decisions in the public interest.

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The restrictions that had been in force since August 2021, were challenged in the High court in a bunch of Public Interest Litigations (PIL).

During the hearing, Justice Karnik said, “As doctors they can advise, but what about the fundamental rights of citizens? We must express that this being a PIL, we committed a mistake by confining only to the challenge in it, and in view of suo motu powers, we should have set aside revised orders.”

During earlier hearings, the bench had raised the issue of rights of livelihood of the non-vaccinated people and the discrimination that they faced. The court had asked the state government to look into it and Maharashtra government told the court that they had actively considered the issue and would be passing fresh order this week.

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With the passing of the fresh order under the Disaster Management Act by state government, the PIL in a way, became infructuous as the earlier circulars that were challenged through the PILs are no longer in vogue.

The bench said it should have struck down the government’s previous order given the “gross violations in imposing restrictions since August 10, 2021”.

“However, we had reposed hope and trust that the State Executive Committee (SEC) would take a decision which is reasonable and not in derogation of the fundamental rights of citizens protected by Article 19 (1) (d),” the judges said.

Article 19 (1) (d) of the Indian Constitution gives right to every citizen to move freely throughout the territory of India.

The bench continued, “The SEC, instead of respecting the observations that we had made in our order, has insisted on only vaccinated people being allowed to avail of public transport, despite the fact that presently in Mumbai and adjoining areas, almost every activity is being performed as in the pre-pandemic days and that normalcy has been restored.”

The bench disposed of the PILs while saying the petitioners would now have to file another petition challenging the fresh order passed by the state.

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