AGENCIES / Staff Reporter / Patna
The Patna High Court has observed people of Bihar have the right to know, on a digital platform, the number of deaths that occurred in the state during COVID-19.
It said that the Bihar government is the most reluctant in putting out the number of deaths that occurred due to COVID-19 in the public domain and pulled up the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led NDA government in the state for what it called an “opaque system” of maintaining birth and death records.
“As simple as it can be, the issue is whether more than 10 crore people of Bihar have the right to know, on a digital platform, the number of deaths that occurred in the state during COVID-19 and whether the government has a corresponding duty to disclose either voluntarily or as mandated by law,” the court said.
“In our considered view, the resistance is uncalled for, for such action is neither protected by any law nor is in consonance with settled principles of good governance,” the court said.
A Special Bench of Chief Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice S Kumar has directed the Bihar government to disclose accurate and timely statistics of such deaths through digital means.
The court further said that transparency is the hallmark of good governance, more so in today’s era when both the Centre and the state are committed to making Digital India and National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP), 2012 a success.
The Bench has been passing strictures on the State government’s dismal management of the pandemic for the last several days.
“We see no reason as to why such information of deaths, COVID and non-COVID, is not regularly uploaded and made known to the general public,” said the court.
The court also asked elected representatives to elicit number of deaths in their respective constituencies within 24 hours. “Elected representatives upon whom an obligation has been placed, are duty-bound to disclose the number of deaths that occurred in their constituencies within 24 hours,” said the court while directing the government to complete the process of updating deaths and births within the next two months.
“The Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969 and also the Right to Information Act, 2005 give rights to a person in almost unequivocal terms of their access to information and, therefore, the digital portals should be made accessible to the general public with regular and timely updates,” the court observed.
Recently, Bihar was in the news headlines for undercounting the death figures related with COVID-19. In one day, the death figures had jumped by a whopping 72% and had cause a spike in the death toll of the country as well.