The Supreme Court is scheduled to consider on August 14 a plea by a group of six former senior bureaucrats for an independent inquiry into Union government's "gross mismanagement" of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country.
A bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao, Hemant Gupta and S Ravindra Bhat will take up the petition filed by K P Fabian and others through advocate Prashant Bhushan.
The petitioners, namely M G Devasahayam, Meena Gupta, Somsundar Burra, Amit Bhaduri and Madhu Bhaduri, contended that the response of the government to the pandemic and the deleterious impact of it on the lives and livelihoods of citizens of the country was a matter of public importance.
It warranted the appointment of a Commission under Section 3 of the Commission of Inquiry Act, they said in their joint petition.
They said a Commission, headed by a former Supreme Court judge and comprising experts from fields of medical science, epidemiology, public health, law and social sciences, should be formed to conduct an independent inquiry into issues of failure to take early measures for containment of the disease, abrupt and arbitrary declaration of lockdown, failure of lockdown to contain transmission of the disease and misery wrought upon ordinary citizens owing to unplanned and the sudden nature of lockdown.
(Published 12 August 2020, 05:30 IST)
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