Moral fabric dismembered: Delhi High Court on oxygen hoarding

NEW DELHI:  The Delhi High Court on Thursday said the moral fabric of people has been “dismembered” to a great extent as instead of coming together to fight the Covid pandemic, they are engaging in hoarding and black marketing of oxygen cylinders, medicines and concentrators.

“We are still not understanding the gravity of the situation and that is why we are not coming together. Which is why we are seeing instances of hoarding and black marketing. Our moral fabric has been dismembered to a great extent,” a bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli said.

The observation came in response to a suggestion by a senior lawyer that medical professionals who have retired as well as medical and nursing students can be tapped to provide assistance in the prevailing situation when there is shortage of personnel also not just medicines, equipment and beds.

Senior advocate Nitya Ramakrishnan also suggested that a committee of experts in the field of health be constituted, like a public-private partnership, to assist the court. To this, the bench said people would have to be “incentivised” in the form of some comfort or some compensation to encourage them to venture out and expose themselves to the infection.

Senior advocate and amicus curiae Rajshekhar Rao said having the infrastructure was not enough, we need to have personnel manning the infrastructure. He also said that presently a handful of people were taking all the decisions.