Can’t restrict home quarantine to 14 days: HC

Can’t restrict home quarantine to 14 days: HC

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi:13.05.2020

Delhi high court has said that the home quarantine period for Covid-19 patients cannot be limited to the mandatory 14 days as there is no certainty about the virus’ virulence, gestation period or the time taken for an infected person to manifest the symptoms.

Justice C Hari Shankar said that at a time when Covid-19 has the world “befuddled” and the administration is “traversing uncharted territory”, it needs to be given the freedom to lay down and implement its policy to deal with the pandemic. “The executive must, in such a circumstance, be afforded the requisite play in the joints, so as to formulate and implement its policy, as meaningfully and efficiently as possible. Absent any legal or constitutional infraction, courts have to be slow in subjecting executive action taken in context of the novel coronavirus crisis to searching judicial scrutiny,” the high court observed.

“In this background, this court is unwilling to hold that in each and every case, the period of home quarantine must stand limited to 14 days and no more,” it added. The court, however, noted that any person not displaying the symptoms of infection nor having tested positive for the disease, if quarantined for more than 14 days, can represent against it to the authorities to the authorities who have to either give reasons for it or lift the restriction..

The court’s observations came while disposing of plea questioning the manner in which the authorities were implementing the guidelines as one of the 72 families, which had contact with a Covid-19 infected pizza delivery person, was put in quarantine for over 30 days.

The order came on the petition by one Amit Bhargava, who alleged he was put in home quarantine from midnight of March 24-25, when he had first contact with the delivery person, till April 28 — for a period of over 30 days as against the stipulated 14 days. However, the high court rejected the argument of Bhargava’s lawyer that there was no justification to put him under home quarantine of more than 14 days.

The court said that the administration needed to be given the freedom to lay down and implement its policy to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic