SC stays Allahabad HC order locking down 5 cities in UP

SC stays Allahabad HC order locking down 5 cities in UP

Dhananjay.Mahapatra@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:21.04.2021

The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed operation of Allahabad high court's Monday order directing the state to enforce week-long complete lockdown in five major cities — Prayagraj, Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi and Gorakhpur — to control spiralling Covid-19 cases during the second surge of the pandemic.

The UP government, which had announced its decision not to comply with the order, got an appeal prepared overnight and through solicitor general Tushar Mehta requested and got an urgent hearing before a bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian. Mehta said the government respected the intent behind the HC's order, but maintained it was a clear encroachment into the executive's domain. He said the order, despite its best intent, could cause confusion, panic and massive disruption of supplies to other parts of the state during these difficult times.

The SG said the UP government had issued several directions to contain the spread of Covid-19 and was taking adequate precautions on its own. He said though the HC maintained that its directions "are nowhere close to a complete lockdown", they were as rigorous as a complete lockdown.

Accusing the HC of encroaching into the executive’s domain by passing lockdown order for five cities, the UP government said, "There was no empirical data before the HC to compel it to arrive at a conclusion that lockdown/total curfew for a week was the only way to break the chain of Covid infection."

The SC bench said, "Until further orders, there shall be an interim stay of the impugned order passed by the HC.” However, it asked the state government to immediately report to the HC about the steps it has taken and proposes to take in the immediate future within a period of one week in view of the current pandemic. The bench also appointed senior advocate P S Narasimha as amicus curiae to assist the court as the HC had passed the order in a matter initiated suo motu.

UP govt: HC encroached upon executive domain

The Uttar Pradesh government has welcomed the SC’s decision to stay Allahabad HC’s directive to impose lockdown in five districts of the state. In its special leave petition (SLP) in SC on Tuesday, the government stated it had already imposed several curbs, but apart from saving lives it also had to think of saving livelihoods. The SLP said the high court order had ventured into governance by “breaching the statutory principles of separation of powers between judiciary and executive”. TNN