Jharkhand High Court: A Division Bench of Dr Ravi Ranjan, CJ and Sujit Narayan Prasad, J. while addressing the Public Interest Litigation, held that,
“we hope and trust that Central Government would take adequate steps regarding additional testing kits and facilities.”
Court noted that more than 1,50,000 persons have been quarantined, though the availability of testing kits is only of 5000, thus the number of testing kits are not sufficient and the State Government should approach the Central Government for providing more testing kits and creating testing facilities as at present the same are available only at RIMS, Ranchi and Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College, Jamshedpur.
State should take steps so that the persons who are quarantine at present should not step out.
Bench also stated that State Government’s reply on the number of private homes in which persons have been home quarantined is not clear.
If the State Government approaches the Central Government for more testing kits and testing facilities, we hope and trust that Central Government would take adequate steps regarding that, of course after following guidelines which shall already been issued by it for combating the present menace.
Matter to be listed on 17-04-2020.[Court on its own motion v. State of Jharkhand, 2020 SCC OnLine Jhar 361 , decided on 07-04-2020]