Slamming the Centre over the use of irritating caller tune for the awareness of Covid-19 Vaccination drive, the Delhi High Court on May 14 asked who will get vaccinated when there are not enough vaccines. Pointing that there should be some sense of emergency, the Court asked the Union of India and the GNCTD to ensure information dissemination of covid 19 management.
A division bench comprising Justice VipinSanghi and Justice RekhaPalli was hearing petitions concerning the covid 19 situations in the national capital. They also asked what the point of this message is when there is no vaccination.
“You have been playing that one irritating message on the phone whenever one makes a call, for we do not know how long that you (people) should have the vaccination when you (Centre) don’t have enough vaccine. You are not vaccinating people, but you still say that vaccination lagavaiye (get vaccinated). Kaunlagayega vaccination (who will get vaccinated), when there is no vaccination.
Amidst the hearing, Advocate AnuragAhluwalia informed the Court that the ICMR has updated the guidelines from time to time and have also taken steps by making videos of Dr Gulleria in order to inform the public about the covid 19 virus.
While the Bench orally remarked: “ICMR has out down all material over here. They have dumped it here and categorised it. We’re talking about dissemination to the public. It’s not very conducive to do it like this. We need someone to educate people; maybe you can make some clip, use graphic or give it in the newspaper.” When Ahluwalia informed the Court that there is already a mechanism in place wherein regular tweets and short videos are shared on ICMR’s Twitter handle. While addressing this, the Bench remarked: “Audiovisual of Dr Gulleria should be televised on news channels like Doordarshan. It’s the responsibility of the Centre. As far as the print media is concerned, Delhi Government must ensure it. It must be something that can be easily transferred to public when you share it. For example we said what kind of Concentrator to buy, what are the do’s and don’ts. We have to look at those aspects also.”
