The Delhi High Court has slammed the Delhi Government over its order to reserve a hundred rooms at a five star hotel for the Judiciary for Covid-19 treatment. The AAP Government in Delhi had claimed that the order was passed at the request of the High Court. The Court has denied that it ever made such a request.
“We have not made any such request that you set it up at this hotel or that hotel. Purpose of the meeting was that the judiciary specially subordinate courts.. We’ve already lost to two judicial officers,” the Delhi High Court said.
“All that we wanted was in case they need hospitalisation, that facility should be given. It has translated into this order,” it added. Shockingly enough, the Delhi High Court asked senior advocate Rahul Mehra, representing the Delhi Government, whether the intention was to ‘appease’ them.
“You are passing orders left right and centre without meaning to do anything about it.. We have not even asked for it. That hospital has no manpower, no equipment, no ventilator, no medicines,” the Court said. “What is the protection? That …it is to benefit ourselves or that you have done to appease us,” it added.
Mehra blamed the media instead and claimed that the media was playing a “mischievous role”. But the Court said it was not the media which said that but the order itself. “Can we as an institution say that you create a facility for us.. such and such beds for us. Would it not be patently discriminatory?”
“Media is not wrong, order is wrong,” the Court observed.
It was reported in the media late on Monday initially and subsequently covered widely since then that a hundred rooms had been reserved for judges and judicial officers of the court and their families for a Covid health center at the Ashoka Hotel, a five star facility.
The news had gathered much outrage and was criticised heavily across the board. It was reported that the Delhi Government had passed the order following a request by the Delhi High Court. The Court said today that they never made such a request as the order implied.
For the past few days, the Arvind Kejriwal-led government has been regularly slammed at the High Court for its gross mismanagement of the medical oxygen supply, leading to an oxygen crisis.