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Bombay High Court continued hearing plea seeking Door To Door Vaccination for elderly and bed ridden citizens, flagging issues of overcrowding and no time slots followed at Vaccination Centres.

A Division Bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice GS Kulkarni, while hearing the matter today, said, “Instead of asking the citizens to rush to vaccination centres, you chase them and get vaccinated. Your officers have been completely insensitive. This is not done.”

Court made the said observation in light of submissions of Advocate Jamsheed Master made during the course of a previous hearing;

“The line is in the sun outside. There are bamboo sticks defining passage. You cannot leave the line. (Sharing his personal experience) My Father’s time slot was early morning but he got vaccinated around 4:45 in the evening. A gentleman of 60+ years…”

“How can a Senior citizen be asked to wait for 8 hours/10 hours? What if he is diabetic? What if he has to use restroom? You have to find out methods. No one can be put to harassment like this”, said Chief Justice Datta.

The bench further asked ASG Singh on the Advisories provided by the Expert Committee for citizens who cannot come to the Vaccination Centres.

“Is there any data that due to ‘A’ type of vaccination there is some difficulty? Where is the data?...We have two vaccines available… because whatever you say has to have a scientific basis. If the same vaccine can be administered Door To Door in the UK, what is the issue with adopting it here?”, Court asked on the contention that Centre was also considering the issue of side effects post vaccination.

Advocate Dhruti Kapadia placed reliance on the Berhampur Model wherein the Municipal Corporation was taking up the task on inoculating door to door.

Adv. Kapadia: On May 19 they have officially tweeted that the vaccination drive in Berhampur is going smoothly. Today we get a disheartening news that they stopped it.

It was further informed by the learned counsel that even the ICMR in its recent report had recommended for a door to door vaccination drive.

On the issue of side effects, Kapadia referred to the Questions answered by MoHFW on the floor of the house; “A total of 7,580 AEFIs i.e. 0.2% AEFIs cases have been reported out of total number vaccinated till 31st January 2021 under COVID-19 vaccination roll-out across the country. Most of these are minor AEFIs like Anxiety, vertigo, giddiness, dizziness, fever, pain, rashes, and headache which are self-limiting and all people have recovered. 14 hospitalizations i.e. 0.000372% hospitalization cases have been reported out of total number vaccinated till 31st January 2021. 12 deaths i.e. 0.000319% death cases out of total number vaccinated till 31st January 2021 not causally related to vaccination presently, have also been reported. These deaths were investigated and examined by the experts and as per current evidence none of these deaths have causal relationship with the COVID-19 vaccination.” http://loksabhaph.nic.in/Questions/QResult15.aspx?qref=19429&lsno=17

The bench also enquired about the opinion of NEGVAC on the present issue.

Furthermore, Court was apprised of private medical service providers like ‘PharmEasy’ and ‘Vaximum’ who were willing to carry out door step vaccination.

Court: Everybody cannot be permitted. We will have to see.

The matter is now listed on June 2, 2021 awaiting recommendations from NEGVAC.

"We only wish to observe that no segment of the society should feel neglected, while the nation marches ahead to vaccinate its citizens, and in the likely event of the NEGVAC deciding in favour of door to door vaccination for the elderly and disabled citizens, such policy may be circulated for implementation by the States without waiting for the orders of this Court", the Order read.