New Delhi: The Delhi Police on Sunday registered a case against two private hospitals in the city for allegedly violating Delhi Disaster Management Act (DDMA) guidelines by denying admission to COVID-19 patients on grounds of non availability of beds, in stark contrast to the number of available beds on the Delhi Corona App.
Legal action was taken after police received a complaint from Delhi government.
The two hospitals against whom an FIR has been filed are Mata Chanan Devi Hospital in West Delhi's Janakpuri and Hakeem Abdul Hameed Centenary Hospital in South Delhi's Hamdard Nagar.
Meanwhile, police has also received a complaint pertaining to four airlines — SpiceJet, AirAsia, Indigo and Vistara — where it has been alleged that they have violated DDMA guidelines which mandates a compulsory negative RT-PCR test for passengers boarding the airplane from Maharashtra. However, no FIR in the matter has been registered yet.
A senior police officer said that the Tehsildar of Dwarka District along with a team of police officers, on the direction of District Magistrate (South-West) and SDM Dwarka, went to Mata Chanan Devi Hospital in order to inspect the bed availability status. "On
reaching, the staff there told them that there were no beds available for COVID-19 patients...following this they checked the same on Delhi government portal which showed that 93 beds were available…," the officer said.
A case under IPC sections 415,417 and 51(B)/52 DDMA Act has been lodged on the complaint of the tehsildar, Bhoop Singh, the officer added.
Meanwhile, after a complaint was received by SDM Kalkaji,Vinod Yadav, against Hakeem Abdul Hameed Centenary Hospital, regarding the denial of beds to COVID-19 patients there, a decoy patient was sent to the hospital, where the staff said that no beds were available but the government portal showed 239 beds.
A case under sections of IPC 188, section 3 of Epidemic Diseases Act and sections 51, 52 and 58 of the Disaster Management Act has been filed, DCP (South) Atul Kumar Thakur said.
Meanwhile, pertaining to a complaint against the four airlines, a senior police officer confirmed that a complaint has been lodged regarding violation of DDMA orders which states that only passengers with negative RT-PCR test should be allowed to board the plane from Maharashtra.
"The order however has an option which says that if a passenger doesn't have a negative RT-PCR report then he or she will be quarantined for 14 days here…," the officer said.