A Division Bench of the Madras High Court, comprising of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy, has, in the case of Meenakshi Balasubramanian v. The Union of India and another observed that State should make all the endeavours to vaccinate person with disability expeditiously irrespective of the fact that the person is above the age of 45 or not.
“Every endeavour should be made by the State to enable vaccination as expeditiously as possible to protect the lives of persons with disabilities. Immediate steps should be taken by the State to ensure that vaccination centres are accessible to persons with disabilities by constructing ramps or other measures in accordance with the said Act of 2016.”
Background of the Case
In this case, the Petitioner named Meenakshi Balasubramanian filed a petition pertaining to vaccination of the person with disability and claimed that they are at least six times more at risk than others as age restriction was not fruitful in the case of a person belonging to PWD category.
Therefore, this Petition was filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India praying for the issue of a Writ of Mandamus to direct the 1st respondent to include Persons with Disability and their caregivers as a priory group for administering COVID-19 vaccine.
Reasoning and Decision of the Court
The Court made a strict perusal of guidelines issued by the Centre regarding the vaccination of the people above the age of 45. The Court was also careful before making any decision that would have an adverse effect on the result of vaccination. The Court also looked into the submission which was made by the State:
“all Government vaccination centres will have a separate counter throughout the day when vaccination is undertaken at such centres exclusively for persons with disabilities. At any rate, persons with disabilities should be given priority in being vaccinated even if the numbers do not warrant an exclusive counter being set up at every Government vaccination centre. The Union has relied on a document appended at page 21 of the typed set filed on behalf of the Union on March 19, 2021.”
The Court directed the State to:
"prioritise persons suffering from disability as indicated in the relevant Annexure, irrespective of whether such person has attained the age of 45 but subject to a previous reasoned basis being arrived at as to what would be the minimum appropriate age for a person to be vaccinated.”
The Court also instructed the State to give:
“primary consideration in determining the minimum age would be whether the various vaccines have an adverse impact on infants, children or persons who have not attained adulthood. The manufacturers may also be consulted in such regard as to the adverse effect of the relevant vaccination on person’s upto or below a particular age.”
The State may also consider administering the vaccine to persons above the age of 18 but suffering from any form of disability as indicated in the Schedule to the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 instead of confining it to the disabilities indicated in the Union annexure, stated the Court.
Hence, the Court disposed of the petition without imposing any cost on it and expressed that every care should be taken to obtain information and arrive at a reasoned decision as to the appropriate age before the vaccination is opened up to persons suffering from disabilities or the kind of disabilities indicated in the relevant document relied upon by the Union.
Case Details
Case:- W.P.No.2951 of 2021
Petitioner:- Meenakshi Balasubramanian
Respondent:- The Union of India & Ors
Counsel for Petitioner:- Mr.A.Yogeshwaran
Counsel for Respondent:- Mr.D.Simon , Mr.V.Jayaprakash Narayanan
Judge: Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy
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