HC notice to Delhi govt on PIL for transportation, cremation of corpses of COVID patients
May 17, 2021
New Delhi [India], May 17 : The Delhi High Court on Monday issued notice to the Delhi government on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that sought direction to the government of national capital to formulate a concrete plan for providing facilities and infrastructure for transportation and cremation of corpses of COVID-19 patients.
The bench of Justice DN Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh sought a response from respondents and slated the matter to June 4, for further hearing.
The petition was moved by Mujeeb Ur Rehman stating that the people of Delhi need a dedicated facility from the government to help them in handling and transporting the dead bodies infected of Covid, mortuaries for such bodies, and funeral facilities. "Expecting that the general public will come out itself to do all these tasks will be a foolish thought as Covid being a highly infectious disease and high fear of being infected is keeping most of the people away from doing such social service," the plea read.
The petition said that the people are refraining from performing such social services, because if done by untrained and novice people can expose them to this deadly virus and in turn can be a danger for the community at large, thus, in view of this, a dedicated facility is the need of the time.
The petition sought a dedicated 24x7 telephone helpline number to provide services in respect of any dead body, a dedicated transportation facility in respect of any dead body, dedicated teams of trained people to handle the corpses.
The petition also seeks direction to formulate and implement an effective and concrete plan with sufficient infrastructure to identify and prepare sufficient mortuaries for keeping all such bodies, identify and prepare for sufficient funeral places for the respectful cremation and burial of such dead bodies, invite NGOs and Volunteers and trained them with necessary training so they can be resourceful in performing this social service.
Delhi has reported 5,499 new COVID-19 cases, 11,592 recoveries and 337 deaths since 8 pm on Sunday, the Union Health Ministry informed. The Ministry on Monday said that the active number of COVID cases in the national capital stands at 66,295. With the new fatalities, the COVID death toll in the state has mounted to 21,244.
