Gujarat HC bench critical of state’s handling of COVID-19 reshuffled

The Chief Justice of Gujarat High Court on Thursday assigned a suo motu PIL and other pleas related to the coronavirus outbreak in the state to a new bench. The move came after the earlier bench headed by Justices JB Pardiwala and Justice IJ Vora had made strong critical observations about the state government's handling of the pandemic and the condition of Ahmedabad Civil Hospital.

Gujarat: Days after a division bench headed by Justice J B Pardiwala of Gujarat High Court compared the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital to a 'dungeon' refusing to give the state government a clean chit in its handling of COVID-19, the bench was abruptly shuffled for Friday by the Chief Justice of the High Court.

In its order, Chief Justice Vikram Nath replaced the bench comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and Justice IJ Vora with a new bench comprising himself and Justice JB Pardiwala.

The shuffling comes on a day when the High Court was due to hear the PIL on issues pertaining to coronavirus disease.

Since May 11, the PIL was being heard by a division bench headed by Justice Pardiwala, along with Justice Ilesh Vora, and it had taken suo motu cognisance of several media reports highlighting the plight and issues of migrant labourers. The bench had also taken suo motu cognisance of the high mortality rate in the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital.

In its May 22 order, the bench headed by Justice Pardiwala had observed that the condition of Ahmedabad Civil Hospital was "pathetic, distressing and painful," and it was "as good as dungeon". It is the responsibility of health minister Nitin Patel and senior health department officials to deal with the situation, the bench had further remarked.

Following the HC order, the state government on May 25 had moved a civil application on urgent priority, with Chief Justice Vikram Nath’s endorsement for urgent hearing the same day. The application had “endeavoured” to clarify that the condition of Civil Hospital “was not as pathetic” as the high court observed in its May 22 order.

However, Justice Pardiwala’s bench had said “it was too early to give a final certificate” and had said that the bench will visit the civil hospital “one fine morning” and put an end to all controversy.

Meanwhile, the number of coronavirus cases in Gujarat rose to 15,572 on Thursday while the death toll reached 960, according to the state health department.