COVID-19: HC disposes of plea to implement NCRPB Act; asks petitioner to make representation to respondents

On Friday, the Delhi High Court disposed of a petition seeking directions to implement the National Capital Region Planning Board Act, specifically provisions related to healthcare infrastructure and disaster management, to effectively tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and asked the petitioner to make a representation before the respondents.

A division bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan, after hearing the submissions, asked the petitioner to make a representation before the Central government and granted him liberty to reapproach the court if needed.

The petition, filed by law student Arjun Narang through advocate Shantanu Singh, sought directions to the Central government to appoint a single nodal agency to carry out disaster management operations in the NCR by having powers under the NCRPB Act and DM Act.

The plea sought directions to the Centre, Delhi government and district-level authorities of the NCR to work in tandem and provide a single set of parameters under a common COVID-19 response plan for the entire region.

It also sought directions to the Centre Delhi governments and district-level authorities to work in tandem and provide a single set of guidelines to implement the study on health infrastructure in NCR as published by the NCRPB in December 2015 on its website, which has highlighted several other key gaps in the health infrastructure of the NCR region.

"Delhi-NCR has been battling with an executive problem on account of numerous discrepancies between the guidelines issued by the NCR governments in relation to the response mechanisms to the outbreak," the plea said.

"The discrepancies have most prominently manifested in relation to the interstate travel, patient admission, testing of persons, dealing with containment zones, and dealing with people diagnosed with COVID-19," it added.

It said that in order to bring uniformity in the COVID-19 response, it is imperative that the respondents designate the NCRPB or any authority consisting executive members from all concerned states and union territories, as the single nodal agency, under Section 62 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005 to carry out disaster management tasks in the region.

"The planning board consists of the primary executives of all the concerned States and Union Territories... It is prayed that the planning board be designated as the single nodal agency under Section 62 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005, to carry out COVID-19 response and other disaster management operations in the region," it said.

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