Telangana High Court directs the State govt to take stern action against medical stores

 A two judge panel of the Telangana High Court comprising Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice A Abhishek Reddy on Thursday directed the State government to take action against traders and medical stores, which are quoting high prices for sanitizers and facemasks, taking advantage of the prevailing situation due to the coronavirus scare. The panel enquired with Dr. Shankar about the link between temperature and frequency of coronavirus. The virus cannot survive in temperatures above 30 degree centigrade said Dr Shankar and explained that Telangana, therefore, does not face danger of human transmission of cases.

The panel was dealing with the batch of public interest litigation cases pertaining to spread of communicable diseases, including coronavirus. 

Earlier in the day, the Advocate General informed that sufficient steps are being taken by the government to tackle the situation. He informed that the government had taken initiatives to run five testing labs, including those at Osmania Hospital, Fever Hospital, MGM Hospital in Warangal with a capacity to test 100 samples per day, adding to the existing laboratory at Gandhi Hospital. He also informed about the awareness measures



taken at Anganwadi centres and publicity campaign being carried out to inform public at large. The court expressed concern over the prices of sanitizers and masks that were shooting up. It enquired about the concerned authorities actions against shops charging high prices. When the AG said that a team of doctors had studied the best practices, the panel said “simply stating best practices is not enough elaborate as to what are the best practices and the practices that can be adopted in Telangana.”

Senior counsel S Niranjan Reddy said although the State is doing enough it should be prepared to face the worst situations. As pointed out by the senior counsel the panel directed the government to file a report on surveillance team, call centre team, material management team, infrastructure isolation wards, private hospital management team and transport and ambulance management teams’ constitution and their functioning. Senior counsel also informed that the Disaster Management Act also enables the States to rope in experts from private sector. 

Directing the State to file its detailed report by April 23 the State adjourned the case to April 26.