The High Court of Delhi has sought responses from the Centre, Delhi Govt and others on a petition seeking contempt proceedings over the alleged non-compliance of an earlier order for action against illegal online health service aggregators in Delhi & to regulate online pathological labs.
On Friday, a bench of Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva issued notice to the Centre through the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Delhi government and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), & slated the matter for further hearing on Jan 29, 2021.
The Court also asked petitioner Dr Rohit Jain, who moved the court through counsel Shashank Deo Sudhi, to file a corrected memo of parties giving correct serial numbers of the respondents.
The contempt plea said that the respondents have completely failed to comply with the order of this court by not taking appropriate legal actions against online health aggregators despite its directions for the same.
The petition said that the court had on Aug 6 directed the authorities to initiate action in accordance with the law against any illegal online health service aggregators operating in Delhi in violation of the applicable law including the Clinical Establishment (Registration & Regulations) Act, 2010, if applicable, or in violation of any rules, regulations or government policies applicable to the facts of the case.
The plea alleged that the top official of the respondents are equally responsible for restraining the illegal practices of online aggregators being carried out in "utter violations" of the rules & regulations laid down by statutes & the guidelines issued by the respondents.
It also said that several illegal online aggregators are advertising freely by offering attractive packages for body check-ups including the test for COVID-19 through SMSs or various online modes.
The plea stated, "The petitioner has received advertisement of online aggregator through e-mail for getting tested. It's also submitted that it is an extremely serious issue that the online aggregators are operating without any authorization & approval. Besides, these online aggregators are not accredited by any accreditation agency".
It added that "The existence of such illegal online diagnostic aggregators are posing serious health challenges as a large number of people are falling prey to the attractive health packages being offered by these illegal online aggregators".
The plea said that the acts of respondents "clearly constitute contempt of the court" & sought that appropriate contempt proceedings should be initiated against them for acting against the order of this court.
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