The Telangana High Court today expressed its annoyance at the KCR government for the latter's decision to
block the entry of ambulances carrying critical Covid-19 patients from neighbouring regions, including Andhra Pradesh, into the state, and stayed the May 11 government circular ordering the restrictions.
Though the court
questioned the government on the restrictions earlier as well, the matter came up again after a retired IRS official, Venkata Krishna Rao, filed a petition challenging the government's decision.
In his petition, Rao told the court that the government was stopping emergency vehicles at Telangana's borders in an "illegal manner", and appealed to the court to recognise the decision as illegal, allowing ambulances from AP and other states to carry patients into the state.
Dealing with the petition, a bench, comprising Chief Justice Hima Kohli and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy, pointed out that the government order pertaining to ambulance entry restrictions, which was issued by Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, flagrantly violated provisions of both the Epidemics Act and the Disaster Management Act.
At this, Advocate General B S Prasad told the bench that Covid-19 patients from four states of the country, including AP, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, and Maharashtra, had occupied 45% of the ICU beds in the state's hospitals. He further stated that due to this, many patients from within Telangana were suffering due to the consequent shortage of beds.
Reiterating what he had said at an earlier hearing on the matter, Prasad then added that the police personnel deployed at the state's borders were not denying beds to those who had obtained prior confirmation of bed availability from any of the private hospitals in the state, claiming that, unlike Telangana, many states had simply banned the entry of people from other states.
To the AG's clarifications, the HC bench replied that no other state had stopped the entry of ambulances which, it pointed out, could even be considered as a violation of the Indian constitution.
The next hearing on the matter will be held on May 17.
Ever since the restrictions on ambulance entry were implemented in Telangana, the state government has drawn much flak from many quarters. But it continues to maintain that it has the right to take the steps it deems necessary to protect the people of the state from the pandemic.
Meanwhile, the AP government has said that the decision to regulate the entry of ambulances from other states violates the very Acts cited by the TRS regime in the government order calling for the same. It has also demanded that the decision be rolled back.