Tag: #Covid-19

In an affidavit filed with the Mumbai High Court on Tuesday, the Department of Health and Family Welfare stated that vaccination near-to-door would be a more appropriate solution than door-to-door vaccination, On May 20, the Bombay High Court granted the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for Covid-19’s (NEGVAC) time until June 1, 2021, to determine on a door-to-door coverage for residents who might now no longer be capable of going to vaccination centers.

All the participants who participated with inside the assembly agreed that covid-19 vaccination couldn’t receive at domestic because of the troubles and dangers stated through the Expert Committee, which became constituted beneath the chairmanship of Dr. NK Arora, Executive Director Inclen Trust to observe the door to door vaccination policy.” the affidavit states.

It cited the following reasons against door-to-door vaccination:

• Treating adverse events after vaccination (AEFI) in a timely and appropriate manner.
• Carry out the observation protocol of each beneficiary for 30 minutes after vaccination.
• Danger of infection by Covid-19 Vaccinators and mobilizers.

The court hears a PIL of two lawyers, Dhruti Kapadia and Kunal Tiwari, asking for instructions from the central and state governments to initiate a door-to-door vaccination campaign for citizens over 75, people with physical disabilities, and bedridden people.

-Report by Manaswa Sharma

The Supreme Court made a preliminary observation last week and held that the central vaccine policy that does not provide free vaccination for the 18-44 age group is arbitrary and unreasonable.

On Monday, June 7, 2021, Prime Minister Modi announced that free jabs will be provided to everyone above 18 years of age. This is a great example of the power of judicial review.

The Supreme Court raised questions regarding vaccine policy with the center last week. He asked the center to review its vaccination policy. Noting that the center promoted and financed the production of vaccines through concessions, the Supreme Court requested clarification as to whether it stated precisely that private entities are the only ones who bear the risks and manufacturing costs. The financial budget for 2021-22 has been designated Rs 35 billion for the procurement of vaccines, and the Supreme Court had instructed the center to provide data and documents to clarify the use of these funds so far and why they cannot be used to vaccinate people aged 18 to 44 years.

Monday, in his address to the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated that the central government will provide free vaccines to people aged 18 to 44 and has decided to buy 75% of vaccines from vaccine manufacturers, including 25% of the quota. national, and provide free vaccines to countries. Considering that when the constitutional rights of citizens are violated by central policies, the courts cannot be “silent bystanders.” The judge criticized the vaccination policy in an order published on June 2, calling it “ostensibly arbitrary and unreasonable” “and ordered that it should be reviewed.

-Report by Muskan Chanda

SC will continue to proceed with the hearings concerning children who have lost one or both parents, who have been abandoned or orphaned due to COVID-19.

On 28th May, The bench of Justice L. Nageswara Rao and Justice Aniruddha Bose had directed all the local authorities of districts to upload the information of children who became orphans or got abandoned by their families due to the ongoing pandemic on ‘Bal Swaraj’ the portal of NCPCR before 29th May. As per the reports of, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, 1742 children have become orphans and 7464 children have lost either of their parents during the pandemic.

On May 29, 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the scheme for these children which is ‘PM Cares for Children”.
According to the available information about the scheme, children who have lost both the parents or surviving parent or legal guardian/ adopted parents during COVID-19 shall be the beneficiaries of aid from the Central Government, but the scheme needs to be worked out. Till now, nobody is aware of how many children will be benefited from the scheme and how it will be implemented. The Centre has been provided some time to apprise about the scheme and execute it.

Today, Supreme Court has passed orders concerning orphaned children and directed authorities:

• To stop illegal adoption of children orphaned by Covid. Public advertisements for adoptions are unlawful.
• The state gov. /union territories are directed to prevent any NGO from collecting funds in the names of affected children disclosing their identities and giving them for adoption.
• Stringent action shall be taken by the state gov. /union territories against agencies or individuals who are involved in the illegal activities related to the adoption of children.
• No adoption will be allowed of Covid orphaned children according to the provisions of Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015. No adoption is permitted without the involvement of the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA).

–Report by Muskan Chanda

A plea has been filed before the Supreme Court seeking equality in the treatment of authorized journalists and unauthorized journalists for the needs of compensation and other benefits granted by the Central and state governments amid the COVID-19 pandemic. A few state governments have declared journalists as frontline workers; however, the Central government has still not proclaimed the thought. The intervention application (IA) assails the special drive under the Central government’s Journalist Welfare Scheme (JWS) because it doesn’t cover “non-accredited journalists”. Thus, it violates the right to equality under Article 14 of the Constitution of India.

The plea cited figures of journalists who gave up the ghost within the line of duty during the COVID-19 pandemic. Between April 1, 2020, and May 19, 2021, there are 253 verified deaths of journalists thanks to COVID-19 and 93 unverified deaths. The Centre had launched a special drive under the JWS to assist the immediate families of these media journalists who died due to Covid-19. According to the rules under the scheme, accreditation details of the journalist need to be provided. Point 3(ii) (a) and (b) of the guidelines state that “media personnel” will not include people who are at a managerial level or in a supervisory capacity. This leaves an outsized number of persons including unaccredited journalists, technical, managerial, and supervisory staff employed with media organizations alongside unaccredited freelance journalists and stringers who are bereft of any relief or benefits under the scheme.

As per Rule 6.1 of the rules, the eligibility conditions for correspondents/camera persons to avail of the scheme are “minimum 15 years professional experience as a full-time working journalist”. This leaves out an outsized number of journalists who are going to not tend to any benefits after dying within the line of duty due to COVID-19. The mere non-accreditation which is merely a recognition provided by the govt for purposes of access to sources of data, won’t be covered under the scheme. Thus, it’s no parity and is violative of Article-14 of the Constitution of India. The applicant stated that she surveyed 70 journalists/media persons who died of COVID-19 and located out that only 6 percent of them were accredited to the Press Information Bureau. 37 percent were accredited to the government and 57 percent were without accreditation. The difference between the authorized and unauthorized journalists/media person by both the central and therefore the state governments are violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. The plea was settled by Senior Advocate Salman Khurshid and filed through advocate Lubna Naaz.

Report By- Sana Sheikh