JOIN USThe Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre and all states on a plea seeking direction to provide free drugs, education, banking and other facilities to patients of leprosy which affect about 1.25 lakh people yearly in the country.
A bench of Justices Dipak Misra and Vikramjit Sen admitted a PIL filed by Pankaj Sinha for hearing and sought response from the central and state governments within four weeks.
Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, appearing for the petitioner, contended that the leprosy patients were not allowed to have education, sanitary benefits and community based rehabilitation as a result of which they were driven to streets and eventually turned to begging or compelled to live in so-called leprosy homes where they received subhuman treatment.
Despite the availability of Multi-Drug Therapy since 1981 which can cure 99 per cent cases of leprosy, people continued to suffer from the disease, treated as a social stigma due to apathy of the Centre and the state governments, he added.