PIL filed in SC for house-to-house testing for COVID-19

Amid growing coronavirus cases in the country, a PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court for a direction to the government to carry out universal house-to-house testing to trace people infected by COVID-19, to isolate and treat them.

It also sought a direction to the Centre and the states to transfer the money of the PM National Relief Fund and the PM-Cares Fund and the CM-Relief Funds to the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) established under the Disaster Management Act, 2005. Thus, this money could be used for combating coronavirus and the procurement of testing kits, personal protective equipment (PPEs), creation and maintenance of quarantine centres, etc.

The plea, jointly filed by advocate Shashwat Anand and three others, said the measure of social distancing and lockdown to avoid mass transmission and selective tests of suspected coronavirus patients, without conducting mass tests, was like "fighting a fire blindfolded".

This was "indispensable", otherwise the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic would prove to be futile and cause "irreparable consequences and untold misery" to the public.

"The exponential community spread of the most contagious and deadly coronavirus (COVID-19) cannot be put in check only by test of suspected persons, unless mass tests are carried out of public generally," their plea said.

The petitioners said in view of crunch of financial resources, the mass house-to-house tests can first be initiated in COVID-19 hotspots so as to avoid the spread of the disease from the limits of such places.

It also questioned creation of separate public charitable trusts as PM-Cares Fund by the central and state governments, contending this only tended to "maim, weaken and paralyse the Disaster Management Act 2005".

"Creation of non-statutory public charitable trust or fund by the Prime Minister and chief ministers, who are also concerned with promoting the statutory funds or trusts being the NDRF or SDRF, is arbitrary, inappropriate, uncalled for, unjustified and impermissible under the public policy and within the scheme of the 2005 Act," they contended.