A Mumbai based activist through Advocate-On-Record Om Prakash Parihar and Advocate Dushyant Tiwari, filed a plea in the Supreme Court for the deployment of Army in every state across India in order to enforce the COVID-19 lockdown properly.
The plea has been moved keeping in view reported “attacks on healthcare workers” as well as “religious” and “other gatherings due to fake news” across the country amid the lockdown.
The plea also pointed out “these gatherings were allowed to be mobilized when COVID-19 cases have been rapidly increasing across India”, including in States that have the highest number of COVID-19 cases.
The petition also highlighted two recent incidents and stated “A huge gathering in Mumbai on April 14 was due to a fake news spread by a news channel and also by a few self proclaimed activists. It seems all these gatherings are well hatched plan orchestrated to sabotage lockdown plan by few anti-social elements. These people gathered without any luggage knowing well that there was no transportation for them to go to their native places,”
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“Special forces protection is required for the health sector people while going to test COVID-19 patients,” as many incidents were seen where all the health care people were attacked in the recent times.
The plea made a reference to recent marriage function hosted by former Karnataka Chief Minister, HD Kumaraswamy, for his son Nikhil Kumaraswamy.
The April 17 ceremony conducted for Nikhil Kumaraswamy’s marriage has been argued to be “completely against the guidelines and notification” issued by the Government of India as part of its efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19.
The petition also highlighted the upcoming religious festivities this month, and how army deployment in COVID-19 hotspots could prevent attacks on healthcare workers.
The plea stated
“There are apprehensions that in this month again one religious community festival is coming and if Armed forces are not deployed in certain Coronavirus hotspots of India, there are chances of more attacks on people working in the healthcare sector, social workers, police etc and this might lead to communal clashes etc. which is not a good sign for controlling the spread of Coronavirus in India (sic).”
The petitioner has additionally sought directions so that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and National Investigative Agency (NIA) can investigate gatherings of people in India during this time.
