Court shows displeasure over Yogi govt’s handling of Covid crisis; orders lockdown in 5 cities till April 26

Dissatisfied with the Yogi government’s efforts to curb spread of corona infection, the Allahabad High Court has directed the state administration to impose a lockdown in five big cities of the state where caseload is very high for the next one week from tonight.

The five cities where lockdown would be imposed are: Lucknow, Prayagraj, Varanasi, Kanpur and Gorakhpur.

The court ordered that the lockdown will commence from Monday night (tonight) and will end on the morning of April 27.

A division bench comprising Justice Siddhartha Varma and Ajit Kumar passed the order on a PIL filed by different people and organisations on Monday.

The bench came down heavily on the UP government as well on the State Election Commission for holding the panchayat polls. "Economy, economy and economy is the only tune that the government is all the time harping upon, if you take but bread and butter to a person who needs oxygen and medication, it will be of no use to him. You may have grocery shops full of eatables and industries which produce bikes and cars, but all this won’t be of any use if your medical shops run out of stock of life saving drugs like Remdesvire in the current surge of pandemic. It is a shame that while the government knew of the magnitude of the second wave, it never planned things in advance," the court said.

The bench further said, if hospitals are not able to provide beds and oxygen, we are sure that cities like Prayagraj, Lucknow, Varanasi Kanpur and Gorakhpur cannot provide medical aid to even 10 percent of the populations at any given point of time. If hospitals' staff and medicos fall ill while rendering relentless services to cure people in the pandemic, people would start losing their lives and all pomp and show of development would be of no avail, it added.

The court said in such a situation, the night curfew in the name of Corona curfew and the weekend curfew are nothing but a mere eyewash.

“It was probably an effort to show that our last order had been taken care of. We are however, not satisfied at all. We see people are largely not following our order for putting masks on their faces nor, the police could ensure 100 percent masking till date,” the court order said.

"We must record our displeasure at the way the government and the State Election Commission proceeded to hold elections forcing teachers and other government staff to perform duties exposing themselves to the threat of pandemic that looms large these days. The police was virtually shifted to polling places giving priority to election above public health," it said.

It added that in Uttar Pradesh, where COVID-19 had taken the form of a pandemic, the authorities which were holding the Panchayat elections were fully in the know of the fact that no activity had to take place where it was not possible to keep people away from each other.

The court in its order said, "Let a copy of this order be sent to the Chief Secretary, Government of Uttar Pradesh today itself to enforce our above directions forthwith from the night of 19.04.2021 till 26.04.2021 in the cities of Prayagraj, Lucknow, Varanasi, Kanpur Nagar, and Gorakhpur. Copies of this order shall also be placed before the District Magistrates of the concerned districts."

The court, however, added: "Our above directions are nowhere close to a complete lockdown. We are conscious of the fact that before imposing a lockdown the concerned government has to work out various modalities. In this order if we have not imposed a lockdown; it does not mean that we do not believe in it. We are still of the view that if we want to break the chain, a lockdown for a duration of at least two weeks is a must."

The court in its orders said that all establishments be it government or private, except financial institutions and financial departments, medical and health services, industrial and scientific establishments, essential services including municipal functions, and public transport, shall remain closed till April 26. All shopping complexes, malls, hotels restaurants, all grocery shops and other commercial shops excluding medical shops, with more than three workers shall also remain closed till April 26.

All institutions like educational institutions and other institutions shall also remain closed.

The court said no social functions and gatherings including marriage functions shall be permitted till April 26. However, in case of already fixed marriages, necessary further permission would have to be taken from the District Magistrate of the concerned district. Gatherings would be limited to 25.

All religious activities and religious establishments were directed to remain closed till April 26. All hawkers including fruits and vegetable vendors, milk vendors and bread vendors, shall go off the road by 11 AM every day till April 26, the order said.

All public movements on roads would remain restricted completely.