A Dhanbad based lawyer, Mumtaz Ansari, filed a PIL on Wednesday in Jharkhand High Court seeking its intervention to direct the union government to regulate the prices of Covid vaccine and other medical equipment necessary for the treatment of the virus.
Ansari in his petition, addressed to the Chief Justice of Jharkhand High Court, Ravi Ranjan, claimed that the central government’s decision to let manufacturers fix the price of the vaccine has in turn led to the price being fixed in an arbitrary and unjustified manner which is affecting the common man.
In his petition, Ansari demanded that the price of life saving medical devices including oxygen concentrator, pulse oximeter and ventilators should also be controlled under the price control act.
Covid vaccines and other medical devices are essential commodities for saving lives during the pandemic, hence the section 3 of Essential Commodities Act, 1955 and Disaster Management Act, 2005 should be invoked to control the prices of vaccines and medical equipment.
The petition states that the vaccine manufacturing companies have arbitrarily fixed different prices for central government, state government and private hospital which is unjust and unreasonable.
The petitioner quoting a web report claimed the price of Covishield fixed by its producer Serum Institute of India for private hospitals is the highest in the world.
The lockdown and the April 25 resolution of Jharkhand high court directing advocates and clerks to abstain from work till May 2, Ansari pleaded to the court to allow his petition.
Ansari is also associated with a voluntary organisation, Fight4Right which runs an education centre, Disha, for underprivileged children. He has earlier filed a PIL on the condition of Dhanbad government schools which was dismissed by the division bench of the court headed by Justice D.N. Patel in 2018.
In a related development, Dhanbad MP P.N. Singh on Thursday sent a letter to Dhanbad Deputy Commissioner asking him to look into the complaints of exorbitant fees being by private hospitals engaged in the treatment of Covid patients.
