HC directs State govt to file reply within 4 weeks on a PIL on health facilities

Thursday, 27 April 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN

 The Congress leader and social worker Abhinav Thapar said on Wednesday that the Nainital High Court has given a warning to the State government on his PIL on the need to improve health facilities in the mountainous areas of Uttarakhand. He, who filed the PIL in July 2021, said that the court has given the State government four weeks to file its reply.  Thapar said that his PIL was centered on the demand that the State government must abolish the double standards on the rules of setting up nursing homes and hospitals in the plains and the mountainous areas of the state.

He further said that the Covid-19 has laid bare the pathetic health facilities prevailing in the mountainous areas of Uttarakhand. “The scanty health facilities in the state and more particularly in the mountainous areas warrant the State government to sincerely try to increase the health facilities. I am thankful to the High Court for agreeing to my demands. The government kept running away from answering my questions for almost two years, but I did not give up. Finally it will have to answer why the rules should not be relaxed to help the health facilities come up in the remote areas of the state,” he said.   

He said that the thrust of his PIL is that the rules for setting up hospitals and nursing homes cannot be uniform throughout the state. “The rules which apply to the plain areas cannot apply to the mountainous areas. Hence, there should be relaxations for the mountainous areas,” he said.

Abhijay Negi, the advocate for Thapar, said after the hearing that the bench of Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Alok Kumar Verma had asked the State government to file its reply in the next four weeks. The final hearing would be held on June 14, he added.