Political leaders cannot hoard Covid meds: HC
New Delhi: Remarking that political leaders cannot hoard COVID-19 medicines even as the citizens at large struggle easily to find them, the Delhi High Court on Monday lashed out at the Delhi Police over filing an "unsatisfactory" status report giving a clean chit to all such politicians and public representatives and called its investigation into the case as "vague" and a "whitewash".
A division bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Jasmeet Singh stated that politicians were expected not to hoard such medicines when several persons don't have easy access to it, and further directed them to surrender the same to the Director General of Health Services (DGHS). It also questioned how the political leaders obtained such a large number of medicines from chemists.
The court was hearing a PIL moved by one Deepak Singh, who sought registration of FIR against politicians who were allegedly indulging in blackmarketing and illegally distributing COVID-19 medicines without holding a license for the same.
After the court had ordered an inquiry into the matter and sought a status report from the police, a preliminary investigation into the matter has found that such accused persons were, in fact, helping people by providing them medical aid in the form of medicine, oxygen, plasma, etc., free of cost and that they have not defrauded anyone for their voluntary help. As part of its probe, police interrogated several persons and looked into the role of east Delhi MP Gautam Gambhir, Indian Youth Congress chief Srinivas BV, AAP MLA Dilip Pandey, Delhi Congress chief Anil Chaudhary and others.
However, taking note of the report, the bench took exception to its contents and pulled up the police filing an "unsatisfactory" report.
"You had to go into specific allegations. If some political leader is advertising some medicine free of cost, where is he getting it from?" the court questioned.
Justice Sanghi further remarked, "Political leaders have no business to hoard stocks while others are paying high prices. If their intention is to do public good, then they should surrender the same to Director General of Health Services (DGHS) who will then distribute it to government hospitals".
During the hearing, when advocate Virag Gupta, on behalf of the petitioner, mentioned Gambhir selling FabiFlu tablets out of his office, the court asked, "How did he get such large quantities from chemist during such shortage? How can you be so slack about it..."
The court further said that it "means business" and that politics shouldn't be played by such persons over medicine distribution. It also asked police to launch a probe into how chemists supplied such large quantities of medicines to these leaders.
DCP Rajesh Deo, present before the court, said that the status might have been "leaked" to the media and that a comprehensive status report will be filed within a couple of days.
The bench however did not direct seizure of the medical equipment with the politicians and asked the state government to tell the leaders to correct themselves.
"...citizens are suffering due to this. You (politicians) owe a duty to people. This is not the way...we hope and expect Delhi Police to conduct a proper investigation into the hoarding of medicines," the court stated while asking the police to file a status report in this regard within six days.
