The Gujarat high court has asked the state government to come out with the correct figures of Covid-19 patients and deaths in the pandemic and insisted that the government be honest and transparent in its dialogue with the public.
In its order passed on Friday in a suo-motu PIL on Covid-19, the bench of Chief Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Bhargav Karia flagged certain issues for the government to focus on to control the pandemic situation and directed, “Accurate reporting of RTPCR testing with correct figures of positive results be made public. The state should not feel shy of publishing the correct data of RTPCR testing results if such figures are not being correctly reported.”
The HC also said, “The state has nothing to gain by hiding the real picture and hence suppression and concealment of accurate data would generate more serious problems including fear, loss of trust, panic among the public at large.” The court further said that to set things right, the government “needs to have an honest and transparent dialogue with the public”.
The judges said the government is “not responsible for the increase in the upward swing of Covid patients”, but it should publish actual data of Covid-19 cases in order to remove the public perception that “data given by the state is not accurate.”
The state must come up publicly in a transparent and fair manner with complete details with regard to availability and modalities of the required amenities, medication, and related infrastructure for treatment of Covid patients, who require either Covid care centers, hospitalization with oxygen, ventilators, medicines, etc,” the HC order reads.
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