The MP High Court’s Jabalpur principal bench expressed astonishment at the Madhya Pradesh government’s response that no one died of oxygen deprivation during the Covid-19’s second wave, saying, “It’s hard to believe.”
While hearing a series of petitions seeking compensation for deaths purportedly caused by a lack of oxygen delivery during the second wave, the HC noted this.
Early this year, the HC identified 77 deaths owing to oxygen shortages per district, but the State government afterwards filed an affidavit with the court stating that no one died due to a lack of oxygen. When the issue of compensation for deaths due to an oxygen shortage came up on Tuesday, the HC bench was taken aback.
The Supreme Court’s division bench, led by the Chief Justice, has ordered the Shivraj Singh Chouhan administration to respond to the case. When the state government has denied deaths owing to oxygen shortages, the court wants to know what it will do about the compensation requests.
The HC has asked the government on this issue so that it could decide on the petitions.
Offering three weeks to the state government for furnishing the reply, the HC has posted the matter for hearing on September 6.
The MP government also presented an Action Taken Report, 11th one, with the HC claiming 18 plus population will be inoculated by December end this year. The government said it’s installing 188 oxygen plants in the State and 61 of which are already been made operational. Saying that CT scan machines were with 14 district hospitals and tenders have been floated for the remaining ones. A total of 13 medical colleges have been allocated 1,280 ventilators while 16,977 hospital beds will be made available by September 2021, the report said.
