The Delhi High Court Thursday declined to entertain an "inchoate" plea alleging that private hospitals being run by charitable trusts on concessional land given by the government were charging Covid-19 patients heavily and sought their forensic audit.
A bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Talwant Singh, however, granted the petitioner-lawyer the liberty to move the court again with a fresh petition which would have all the necessary details.
In view of the liberty granted by the court, the petitioner withdrew her plea in order to file a fresh one.
"The petition is inchoate and void of necessary details. Petition dismissed as withdrawn with liberty to file a fresh one with all material particulars," the bench said.
During the hearing, held via video conference, the bench said the petition did not have any necessary particulars as to how the trusts and private hospitals were conniving to siphon off money or how much money has been siphoned off.
"We cannot conduct a roving enquiry. We are not an investigating agency. If an offence has been committed file a complaint," the court said.
When the petitioner -- Shobha Gupta -- urged the bench to adjourn the matter to January 2021 so that she can get all necessary details and amend her plea, the court declined to do so saying that she would have to amend or rewrite her entire petition and therefore, it would be better to file a fresh one.
Gupta had sought audit of 11 private hospitals in the national capital which according to her are run on concessional government land by charitable trusts.
She had alleged that the trusts in collaboration with the private hospitals are involved in transmission of huge amounts of money for personal purpose.
Gupta had also claimed that private hospitals have unreasonably increased the prices of beds, room rent, PPE kits, sanitizers and are also charging more than MRP for basic medicines.
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