The Aam Aadmi party (AAP)-led government on Tuesday informed the Delhi high court (HC) that it would be putting out a circular soon against pasting of posters outside houses of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) patients and for the existing ones to be removed immediately.
The Delhi government was responding to a plea, which had contended that posters outside houses of Covid-19 patients was a serious infringement of the right to privacy, an intrinsic part of the right to life and personal liberty as enshrined under Article 21 of the Constitution.
A two-member HC division bench, comprising Justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad, directed the Delhi government to issue a circular, where the authorities are ordered not to circulate the names of Covid-19 patients, especially with members of Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) or other social media groups.
The order came after the petitioner’s lawyer advocate Chinmoy Sharma drew the HC’s attention to the fact that the Delhi government did not pass any order or direction to this effect to date.
The petitioner, Kush Kalra, a lawyer, had objected to the names of Covid-19 patients being freely circulated with members of RWAs and other social media groups, which he claimed “is leading to stigmatisation and drawing of unnecessary attention”.
He urged that Covid-19 patients “ought to be given privacy to cope with and recover from the illness in peace and away from prying eyes”.
On Tuesday, advocate Satyakam, additional standing counsel of the Delhi government, informed the court that an email has been sent to nodal officers on October 7 not to paste posters outside any Covid-19 patient’s house and those that have been pasted should be immediately removed.
He said that the Delhi government officials were not directed to share the names of Covid-19 patients with RWA members or any other person.
The court dismissed the plea, which had also sought other reliefs such as more aggressive testing mechanism in the national capital, use of indigenously developed kits, reformulating Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) advisory on conducting tests and validation of rapid antigen detection (RAD) test kits.
The court said it is examining all these aspects in a separate plea.
Kalra had cited that the Delhi government’s posters had led to a dip in Covid-19 tests in the national capital because of “public embarrassment and stigmatisation”.
It had added: “It is because of these sound reasons that Punjab has rescinded its earlier decision of pasting posters outside Covid-19 patients’ house in a bid to mitigate the stigma attached to the pandemic.”
