Terming the Delhi government's June 7 order as 'Draconian', an advocate and social activist has now sent a legal notice to the Arvind Kejriwal-led government wherein he has asked the latter to withdraw its order which bars non-residents of Delhi to be hospitalised in state government-run hospitals in the national capital.
The activist, Gaurav Kumar Bansal, in his legal notice has stated that instead of serving poor patients lying on the road, the Health and Family Department under the Government of Delhi has issued a "politically motivated order" which is meant to serve the "ill motives" of the "echelons of power" running the government in the Union Territory. The petition also alleged that these powers have adopted a "Pick and Choose policy" for the want of "cheap publicity".
In his legal notice, Bansal has stated that within the national capital there are lakhs of homeless persons with mental illnesses who don’t have any kind of identity card and are instead languishing on the roads.
Bansal, in his petition, pointed out that as per the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017, it is the fundamental duty of Health Department to make provisions for the treatment of the mental illnesses of these homeless individuals but it seems that while passing the June 7 order, the department decided to leave these homeless mentally ill people to their fates, without realising the fact that the same is also an offence under the aforementioned act.
Bansal stated in his legal notice that by way of this order, the Health department has, further, illegally classified patients into two categories: (a) Delhi patients and (b) Non-Delhi patients, thereby excluding the latter group from availing the benefit of treatment from certain medical facilities in Delhi. This is not only an act violative of the fundamental rights of a citizen but also infringes upon the right to life and personal liberty available to the citizen under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, the petition elaborates.
Thereby, the petitioner, Gaurav Kumar Bansal, has asked the Delhi Government to withdraw the aforementioned order on an immediate basis.
