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The Division Bench of Justice DY Chandrachud & Justice MR Shah has rejected the centre’s appeal against the order dated May 5, 2021 passed by Division Bench of Chief Justice Abhay Oka & Justice Aravind Kumar of Karnataka High Court directing the Central Govt to increase the gap of supplying allocation of oxygen upto 1200MT/ day. 

“We find the Order of HC careful, calibrated exercise of judicial power under Article 226; it is an ad interim order which does not preclude a resolution reached by the State and Centre. SLP is accordingly disposed of.”, the Court said.

Ld Solicitor General Shri Tushar Mehta submitted that the distribution & allocation scheme of oxygen PAN India would become unworkable if all the High Courts would start passing orders directing the Central government to increase allocation. He further submitted that the Central government was willing & ready to sit together with the State Government to examine & arrive at a conclusion.

“This is not the HC speaking, State of Karnataka says there are 3.95 lakh cases, with a need of 1800 MT, and as of May 11, the minimum requirement is 1100MT. It is an extraordinary judicial and calibrated exercise power”, said Justice DY Chandrachud.

While passing the impugned order, the Court observed that, “Even coming to the requirement of state, is 1162 MT. As we have observed earlier it has to be ideally more than 1792 MT per day. In circumstances we have no direction but to issue mandatory direction to again consider the demand made on April 30.”

Taking into account the increase in the reported deaths due to lack of oxygen, the Karnataka High Court had directed the State to submit its projections for the requirement of oxygen for a week to the Central Govt & Standing Counsel of Government of India to communicate the order immediately to the Government of India. 

The impugned directions were passed in light of the rise in active cases in the State (currently 4,63,000) & the requirement of an estimated 1792 MT of oxygen on the footing of active cases reaching 3,95,000 as on May 5, 2021.

Case Title: Union of India v. Mohd Arif Jameel