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The Telangana High Court on Monday, January 17, elaborately examined the Covid-19 Public Interest Litigations (PILs) and asked the Telangana government to ensure at least 1 lakh Covid-19 RT-PCR tests every day.

According to a report in India Today, the Division Bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili heard the batch of PILs and writ petitions filed by various advocates, NGOs on Covid.

During the course of hearing, L Ravichandra, senior counsel, and Chikkudu Prabhakar, counsel for the petitioners in the batch of PILs and writ petitions, informed the division bench that the State Government had not complied with the orders of the High Court issued earlier (in 2021, January 4 and 7,2022) directing the government to conduct one lakh RT-PCR tests a day so as to curb further spread of Covid in the state and maintain micro containment zones.

They further mentioned that many counsels of the High Court also tested positive and the government failed to prevent the huge surge of Covid-19 cases in the state.

They counsels submitted before the court that until and unless the State increases the number of tests, it cannot curtail further spread of Covid. They urged the court to direct the State to order all educational institutions to switch to "online classes" in view of surge in cases.

The Advocate-General Banda Shivananda Prasad informed that all orders issued by the division bench in 2021 and early 2022 are being complied with and the educational institutions in the State have been directed to hold online classes with immediate effect due to spurt in the Omicron variant.

The Chief Justice Bench has directed the Telangana government to ensure all contentions submitted by counsels and directed the State to submit a compliance report on or before January 24.

The bench will hear the matter again on January 25.