Udaipur : After hearing on the second consecutive day on a suo motu civil writ petition related to the Pakistani minority migrants residing in Rajasthan, a division bench of the High Court at Jodhpur, on Friday directed the state government to submit a detailed report by June 3, regarding compliance of the guidelines given in SOP (standard operating procedures) on COVID-19 vaccination of persons without prescribed identity cards.
The bench of Justice Rameshwar Vyas and Justice Vijay Bishnoi also directed the government to ensure that ration material or food packets be made available to all the needy migrants residing in various districts of Rajasthan either through the Food Supplies Department or Local Bodies or NGOs.
On behalf of the petitioner migrants , counsel SajjanSingh Rathore had apprised their situation wherein thousands of Pak migrant families living in camps were said to be in pathetic conditions without food, water and primary health facilities during the second wave of COVID. The counsel also had raised concerned on vaccination of the eligible migrants who did not have prescribed identity cards. The court had sought replies in a single day from the central and the state governments on the issue.
On Friday, AAG K.S. Rajpurohit submitted that Jodhpur district administration through the Municipal Corporations (North & South) is providing food packets in the camps and 200 food packets were distributed. The AAG said that as per an estimate some 25,000 Pak migrants are at present residing in various districts of Rajasthan including around 7,500 in Jodhpur. He also said that regarding COVID-19 vaccination of the migrants not having Indian citizenship, the SOP dated 6.5.2021 issued by the central government is silent and, therefore, clarifications are being sought from the centre.
Meanwhile, central government’s counsels ASG Mukesh Rajpurohit and Vipul Singhvi filed an affidavit of the Under Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare wherein, it was said that the central government’s SOP on COVID-19 vaccination of the persons without prescribed identity cards through CoWIN has already been issued and after receiving the requisite information from the state the vaccines will be provided to them. After hearing all the parties, the court viewed that the Central Government’s SOP on vaccination through CoWIN is elaborate and in no way excluding the eligible migrants.
The court said that several directions regarding identification of group of people including in the SOP have been given, but the state has not submitted any details regarding the identification of such groups and hence time is granted to furnish details regarding the steps taken by the state in every district as per the procedure given in Clause 5 of the SOP. The case would be next listed on June3.
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