On Sunday, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) accused BJP of indulging in “ugly politics” during a health crisis, pointing to an order by the High Court of Delhi that refused to scrap the State Govt’s Death Audit Committee & said it was following guidelines “in full letter & spirit”.
A petition filed the All India Lawyer’s Union last Thursday claimed that the Delhi Govt’s data about the number of persons suffering from & dying of the deadly pathogen was incorrect, & had asked for its audit committee, which certifies all Covid-related deaths, to be scrapped.
On Friday, a bench of Chief Justice DN Patel & Justice Prateek Jalan, while refusing to issue any direction against the committee, said the whole case of the petitioner was “based upon presumptions & surmises as the same has been filed on the basis of some newspaper reports without any proper research” & “there is no doubt that members of the committee are experts in their subject & field”.
In its 4-page judgment, uploaded on the website on Saturday, the HC said, “……It further appears that on the basis of the guidelines issued by the Central government, the data is being collected from the hospitals in a proper format. It also appears that the respondents [Delhi government] have constituted a Death Audit Committee on April 20, 2020, for auditing the data in question received from different hospitals in Delhi & thereafter publish the same…There is no doubt that the members of the committee are experts in their subject & field. There seems to be no arbitrariness or discrimination being done nor is there is any material to show false fabrication of data in question being published by the respondents.”
Reacting to the Judgment, on Sunday, Delhi’s Deputy CM Manish Sisodia tweeted, “I am glad that honourable Delhi High Court has put an end to ugly politics being played by some opposition leaders on such a sensitive issue. Delhi govt is providing correct figures related to Corona every day to the people.”
“After high court order declaring Delhi government’s Covid death figures correct, BJP should apologise for playing politics over the dead. The Delhi high court has noted that the Death Audit Committee is a competent authority comprising of experts. It rejected the plea seeking its scrapping. The High Court finds no arbitrariness or discrimination, no false fabrication of data. The BJP chose to do dirty politics even in the time of such massive health & humanitarian crisis,” said AAP national spokesperson Raghav Chadha.
The Bharatiya Janta Party, which is the ruling party in all the 3 municipal corporations in Delhi, said the death figures quoted by its leaders are based on information available with the civic agencies.
“The BJP didn’t go to the Delhi high court in this regard & we don’t know what facts were placed before the court in this matter. We are not doing politics. We have just stated the facts based on the information provided by the three municipal corporations. If the Delhi government thinks that the information provided by the municipal corporation is wrong, then they are free to take action against the corporations,” said Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly
Ramvir Singh added that the death figures were cited by the Govt’s own doctors. “The Delhi Govt should come out with datewise & hospital-wise data about Covid-19 deaths. This will put the matter to rest. People of Delhi have the right to know the truth.”
While BJP leaders said they respect the Delhi HC order, they stood by the allegations made by the corporations.
"Figures we have stated are based on the information collected by our officials from the cemeteries & cremation grounds” & that there have been 350 cremations & burial as per Covid-19 protocols in the region, “of which close to 272 were confirmed case," said Jai Prakash, the standing committee chairman, North Delhi Municipal Corporation.
Bhupinder Gupta, chairman of South Delhi Municipal Corporation’s standing committee, said: “Our figures are based on the reports provided by the hospitals. We have had 381 dead bodies cremated or buried in our facilities. If we go by the Delhi Govt data, are the doctors at the hospital lying?”
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