The High Court of Delhi asked Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) & Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) to file affidavits regarding pendency of approvals to 'FELUDA', a test used for detecting Coronavirus.
A direction from the division bench of Justice Hima Kohli & Justice Subramonium Prasad came when the petitioner Rakesh Malhotra informed the bench that despite the fact that the Drug Control Authority has granted its approval to a test called 'FELUDA' on Sept 20, the same hasn't come out in the market due to the pendency of approvals at the end of ICMR/CSIR.
Central Government Standing Counsel, Ahluwalia sought time to obtain instructions on this regard.
The HC also asked the Govt of Delhi to file an updated status report before the next date of hearing, i.e. Nov 11.
Lawyer Satyakam, representing Delhi Govt, has informed the Court that the Sero-surveillance 4 in Delhi will conclude by day after tomorrow when all the samples shall be collected & it will take at least three weeks for the samples to be processed.
The Court asked the Delhi Govt to file a report of Sero Surveillance-4 & cautioned them not to make it public through preliminary or tentative reports of any nature before filing it in theCourt.
The bench also noted that there have been repeated instances where the turnaround time for declaring the results has been crossing 4 days & said these things are unacceptable when a person tested is required to be isolated in that duration.
The Court said that "There have been occasions when the samples collected by the Delhi Government are sent to laboratories that do not entertain any queries for the reports, least over Saturdays & Sundays, leaving the persons concerned in a quandary more so when the Government has declared Un-lockdown 0.5 which requires all employees to report for work regularly; nor can the self-employed persons/professionals be expected to remain in isolation unnecessarily".
The turnaround time for declaring the results is far exceeding 24 hours & in fact extending to 84 hours, the court noted. The HC also asked the Govt of Delhi to look into the position & state in the next status report as to how the system is being streamlined to ensure that the turnaround time for declaring the results is strictly adhered to & the results, whichever way they may be, are conveyed to the person tested within 24 hours.
The Court was hearing pleas surrounding rapid testing of Coronavirus in Delhi.
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