Ensure Delhi Gets Oxygen Supply By Midnight, Formulate Policy On Admission To Hospitals: SC Tells Centre

The Centre and state governments has been asked to notify on any clampdown on information on social media or harassment caused to individuals seeking help on any platform will attract coercive action.

Supreme Court | File Image

With India’s Covid-19 crisIs deepening with each passing day as the cases mount, the Supreme Court has asked the Centre to come up with a national policy in two week’s time on admissions to hospitals and stressed that no patient shall be denied hospitalisation or essential drugs in any state for lack of local residential proof.

The directions have come by a three-member apex court bench, comprising Justice D Y Chandrachud, Justice L Nageswara Rao and Justice Ravindra Bhat. The orders have been given by the bench in a suo motu case for ensuring essential supplies and services during the pandemic.

What is apex court direction on clamping down information?

The Centre and state governments have been asked to notify on any clampdown on information on social media or harassment caused to individuals seeking help on any platform will attract coercive action.

"The Central government and state governments shall notify all chief secretaries, director-general of police, commissioners of police that any clampdown on information on social media or harassment caused to individuals seeking/delivering help on any platform will attract a coercive exercise of jurisdiction by this court,” said the order uploaded on the SC website late on Sunday night.

What are the directions on deficit oxygen supply?

The apex court also asked the Centre to ensure that the deficit in the supply of oxygen to the national capital is rectified before May 3 midnight. To deal with the deficit oxygen supply, the Centre has to collaborate with the states in preparing a buffer stock of oxygen for emergency purposes and decentralize the location of the emergency stocks, as per the news agency PTI.

Moreover, the emergency stocks are to be created within the next four days and replenished on a day to day basis along with the existing allocation of oxygen supply to the States. The Centre has to reconsider its initiatives and protocols on the availability of oxygen, vaccines and pricing, besides availability of essential drugs at affordable prices.

The matter is listed for the next hearing on May 10.

Earlier, too, the top Court made clear that any attempt to clamp down on the free flow of information on social media, including a call for help from people, would be treated as contempt of the court.

"There should be free flow of information; we should hear voices of citizens. This is a national crisis. There should not be any presumption that the grievances raised on the Internet are always false. Let a strong message be sent to all the DGPs that there should not be any kind of clampdown," the bench had said while reserving its order on April 30.