'Directed States, UTs To Ensure Strict Compliance': Centre To Delhi HC Over Violation Of Covid Norms

The Centre, which filed a status report in response to the High Court’s notice, added that states and Union Territories can take necessary actions under the DMA.

Shoppers throng Karol Bagh market after authorities eased COVID-induced lockdown restrictions. (File Photo/ Getty)

New Delhi: The Centre on Saturday informed the Delhi High Court that the governments of all states and Union Territories have been directed to ensure strict compliance with the national directives for management of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Centre, which filed a status report in response to the High Court’s notice, added that states and Union Territories can take necessary actions under the Disaster Management Act (DMA).

“MHA issued order dated 29.06.2021 directing state/UT governments and state/UT authorities to consider the implementation of targeted and prompt actions for Covid-19 management till 31.07.2021 as conveyed through MoHFW advisory dated 28.06.2021, and also take necessary measures under DMA, 2005,” PTI reported the Centre as saying.

Defending the decision to open up activities following a decline in daily Covid-19 cases, the Centre called it an “essential” process.

The Centre in its response, however, added that the states and Union Territories should ensure that the “whole process is fully calibrated”.

The government said the Covid-19 management national directives, include face covering, social distancing, not spitting in public faces, work from home, staggering of business/work hours, screening and hygiene, and frequent sanitisation.

Clarifying that the decision to impose or ease restrictions has to be based on the assessment of the ground situation, the Centre also informed the High Court about the “framework for implementation of prompt and target action” which, it said, was shared with the states and Union Territories.

“The framework also emphasises that Covid-19 management can succeed only through a whole of government and whole of society approach,” said the report filed in response to a notice issued earlier on June 18 to the Union government and the Delhi government, seeking their response over the violations of Covid-19 protocols in the markets of the national capital.

Taking suo-moto cognisance of the violations, a vacation bench of Justice Navin Chawla and Justice Asha Menon had observed that such breaches would only “hasten the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic”.

The High Court bench also took notice of the violation after a doctor from Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) shared with one of the judges photographs of the street vendors disobeying the Covid protocols in the markets.