The Supreme Court on Tuesday came to the rescue of a pregnant woman, by directing the Union government to make necessary arrangements for her to travel to India from the US.
The Centre agreed to let the woman, in the advanced stages of pregnancy, board the flight from San Francisco to Bengaluru on Wednesday.
Taking up the matter, a bench of L Nageswara Rao, S Abdul Nazeer and Sanjiv Khanna asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to consider the plea made by Pooja Choudhary.
Initially, the court wanted to put her plea for consideration on Wednesday, but her counsel Sanjay M Nuli submitted that her petition would become ineffective as an Air India flight was scheduled to take off from San Francisco on May 13.
Nuli also submitted that the top court had passed an order in another case, directing that priority for evacuation be given to a group of women from the UAE as they were in the advanced stages of pregnancy.
Stuck in the US for over three months after flights were suspended due to the global COVID-19 crisis, Pooja, her husband and their 18-month-old daughter had approached the Supreme Court as any delay in evacuation would pose a danger to her health.
The petitioners contended that they were stranded in Dayton, Nevada, where most hospitals were being used for the treatment of COVID-19. They said they could afford treatment in private hospitals and did not have insurance, too. Pooja, a resident of Bengaluru, said she wanted to deliver her child in India. The expected date of delivery is July 17.