NE LEGAL BUREAU
AHMEDABAD, DEC 1
The Gujarat government told the High Court on Tuesday that it is unable to figure out how those caught not wearing a mask can be made to do community service at COVID centres, as proposed.
It would be difficult to keep track of whether the person has been performing community service as directed, said Advocate General Kamal Trivedi.
A division bench of Chief Justice Vikram Nath and Justice J B Pardiwala, during the previous hearing of public interest litigation on the coronavirus situation in Gujarat, had sought the government”s reply on a proposal to send repeat offenders who are found to be not wearing a mask for community service at COVID centres.
The PIL has been filed by Advocate Vishal Awtani.
“The position of the government is like Prince Hamlet in the Shakespearean play….We could not take any decision because the anxiety of government is not about implementation but post-implementation….to see if each one of them (offenders) have gone for (community) service, to track thereafter,” Trivedi said.
“Government people are wondering how to see to it that effective implementation is maintained….Because we first need to identify places where they (offenders) can be sent to community service….we have to see that we have addresses of each of them caught not wearing masks,” he said.
“We need to have some kind of machinery to see those people have gone to those places for community service,” the advocate general said.
“To put additional staff to see whether the decision is implemented is going to be a mammoth job,” he added.
He also said that the government has put in place a system for stricter surveillance and implementation of the mask rule.
There has been a marginal decline in indicators of the severity of the pandemic, such as the demand for medical oxygen, bed occupancy, and usage of Remdesivir injections, which suggest that the situation is improving, Trivedi said, requesting the court to adjourn the matter to the next week.
But the court said it will pass orders on Wednesday itself after considering the state”s submission that it is unable to decide modalities and mechanisms for community service as a penalty for not wearing a mask.
It was crucial to make a decision now and not after a week when the pandemic situation worsens or improves, chief justice Nath said.
Merely imposing fine was not working, observed Justice Pardiwala, adding that “the whole idea is to create a deterrence”.
