A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Pratibha M Singh pulled up the central government, Delhi government and the civic bodies here over their failure to issue advertisements highlighting the preventive steps to check vector-borne diseases in the city.
It ticked off the Centre over its status report that they have taken steps to prevent such diseases in all part of the country, saying "how is Delhi concerned with what the government has done in Port Blair, Himachal or Kerala".
"Had the central government shown the kind of aggression they showed in the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, it would have yielded a better result in curbing disease like dengue and chikungunya," it said.
"You have to move one step forward ... You being the central government should have been the leader," it said, adding that the authorities have not even done mapping of the areas where these diseases occurred last year.
Also Read
All the authorities should at least launch a campaign through the media to make people aware of the pros and cons of the diseases, the bench said, while also advising the governments to use the services of celebrities or the victims of dengue and chikungunya for advertisements like they do for other dangerous diseases.
"We will be extremely pained if there is loss of life again this year," the bench said and added that if all the authorities had been doing their job, "we would not have been talking like this about these diseases".
It asked the corporations to file a status report containing not only the mapping, but also the preventive steps taken by them and listed the matter for hearing on May 25.
As many as 4,431 cases of dengue were reported till the end of 2016 in Delhi, according to a report of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation which tabulates the data on behalf of all the three municipal corporations in the city.
Of the two petitions before the court, one has been filed by law student Gauri Grover who had sought lodging of FIR against directors of hospitals which had denied treatment to a seven-year-old boy who died of dengue and whose parents subsequently committed suicide in September 2015.
She had alleged that the boy had died due to the callous attitude of the hospitals.
The second PIL, filed by advocate Arpit Bhargava, has accused the AAP government and municipal corporations of not acting vigilantly and responsibly to control dengue and chikungunya outbreaks.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content