The Central Govt has informed the High Court of Delhi that it has suspended a website which was linked to the official mobile application Aarogya Setu & promoting sale of medicines through e-pharmacies.
The Centre’s submission came on a plea seeking to de-link from Aarogya Setu mobile app, the website — www.aarogyasetumitr.in — as it was acting as a marketing tool for e-pharmacies only.
In view of the Centre’s stand, Justice Navin Chawla disposed of the petition filed by South Chemists & Distributors Association.
The order, passed on Tuesday, was made available on the court’s website on Wednesday. The Aarogya Setu application makes use of bluetooth & GPS to alert users who may have encountered people who later test positive for the coronavirus.
During the hearing, Additional Solicitor General Maninder Acharya, representing the Centre, submitted that the operation of www.aarogyasetumitr.in has been suspended. She further said that if at all the website is to be re-launched, the authorities shall keep in mind the issues raised by the petitioners in the petition.
The plea has said the website, is linked to the Aarogya Setu app in a highly illegal, arbitrary & discriminatory manner. It has said that the homepage of the website states ?here are some essential healthcare services you can avail from the safety & comfort of your home? & then lists only the e-pharmacies.
The petition, filed through Senior Lawyer Sudhir Nandrajog & lawyers Amit Gupta & Mansi Kukreja said that ”There is no mention that medicines can also be procured by the local pharmacy stores which operate offline. It is submitted that the respondents (authorities) cannot be allowed to mislead the users of a government developed & mandated mobile application to believe that the drugs for treatment of COVID-19 or to contain the spread of the disease are available only through the e-pharmacies".
The Centre had earlier opposed the plea & said these are extraordinary circumstances & the website has been developed for easy accessibility of medicines to Coronavirus patients. The petition has said there is absolutely no basis for a Govt owned platform be used to promote private commercial ventures.
It has sought direction to the Ministry of Electronics & IT, National Informatics Centre & Niti Aayog to take steps so that the name ‘aarogya setu’ or any identical/ deceptively similar name is not mis-used to sponsor the commercial interests of arbitrarily hand picked entities. It has further sought to take steps for immediate closure of the website.
The petition said the authorities have allowed Govt developed mobile application ‘Aarogya setu’, which has been launched with a salient feature of limiting the spread of Coronavirus, to be used for the benefit of selected handpicked companies
It has said that ”The mobile application ‘Aarogya setu’ itself gives a link to website https://www.aarogyasetumitr.in/ which gives a wrong & misleading impression to a user that the website as well as the information made available on it is also government mandated & approved".
It has alleged that the similarity in the names of the mobile application & the website is ”intentional” & the website seeks to take advantage of the name & goodwill which has been generated by Aarogya setu, even though the website is not government owned.
The petition has said the criteria for getting listed as a vendor on the website is that the entity should be an e-pharmacy, which is arbitrary, without any intelligible differentia, wholly illegal & discriminatory.
Source Link
Picture Source :
