Dilip Ghosh files PIL in High Court about the validity of Audit Committee
Kolkata,01 May(HS): BJP West Bengal state President Dilip Ghosh has filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in Calcutta High Court asking the validity of the Medical Audit Committee set up by the state government to exclusively determine the COVID-19 deaths in the state .
Ghosh also challenged in his petition the state government’s decision to ban the use of mobile phones in government hospitals violating the the basic and fundamental rights of the people.
Informing this state BJP sources informed Hindusthan Samachar here today that Ghosh also charged the state government with supressing the actual reports of deaths and other informations relating to the extent of Coronavirus in West Bengal and demanded immediate disclosure of all such information in the public forum to enable the people to know the exact situation and how grave the present danger was.
Referring to the role of the five member Audit Committee which according to state Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha had so far looked into the causes of death of 105 Corona positive patients in different hospital and found only 33 of them had dired because of the killer virus, while the remainining 72 other patients had lost their lives not because of COVID-19 but because of some other additional ailments.
‘This we found as a desperate attempt of the authorities to supress facts,’ the sources said and questioned the reason behind the Chief Secretary’s annoucement in this regard only yesterday after remaing silent on the issue for a long time despite the opposition demand. The Committee has not looked into the causes of death of all105 COVID-19 positive patients in one day, they said.
Ghosh in his petition also demanded proper assurance from the state government under strict monitoring of the High Court that enough number of Personal Protective Equipment(PPE) was supplied to all Medical staff as well as to all police and other personnel who had been fighting against the disease on the ground.
Also expressing serious concern at the repeated violation of lock down rules in several places including those in strictly forbidden Red and Containment Zones in Kolkata, North 24 Parganas and Howrah besides East Midnapore, the BJP State President urged the High Court to order deployment of Central forces in those areas to prevent further spread of the disease at the community level.
However it is not yet known how soon the case would be heard by the Court in the wake of the closure of all activities in all courts because of the current lockdwn whici is in all likelyhood to continue further after 3 May.