Hyderabad: The High Court decided to monitor the measures the government would take to contain the spread of dengue.
For more than two hours, a division bench of Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice Annireddy Abhishek Reddy questioned Chief Secretary Sunil Kumar Joshi, principal secretary Aravind Kumar, GHMC commissioner Lokesh Kumar, who were in the court. on measures they took to prevent the spread of dengue.
“Governments are spending so much money on IAS officers... was the money spent for this attitude,” the Chief Justice asked. Angered that the court’s directions to handle the dengue epidemic were ignored, he said, “If this attitude continues, we will take it up suo motu as a contempt case.”
The court warned that it would impose a Rs 5 lakh penalty on IAS officers if any dengue death was recorded after the end of November. It would order a compensation of Rs 50 lakh for every dengue death.
Chief Secretary Joshi said the anti-mosquito programmes started late due to the election code. To this, Justice Chahan said, “What if the state was affected by an earthquake?”
The court directed the government to constitute a committee comprising the principal secretaries of medical and health,municipal administration, commissioner of health and family welfare, director of public health, joint director of the State Epidemics Cell, and director, Institute of Preventive Medicine. It’s recommendations would be final.
The court sought a progress report every Thursday and the cases will be adjudicate on Fridays from November 1.
