A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Wednesday orally observed that the request of the State governments for Covid vaccine supply from the non-governmental quota should be prioritised.

The Bench comprising Justice A Muhamed Mustaque and Justice Kauser Edappagath orally observed that the request of the State government should be considered on par with the request of the private hospitals and other private entities. There should be some yardstick for supply of vaccines under the non-governmental quota.

The court made these observations when public interest litigations challenging the Centre’s Liberalised Pricing and Accelerated National Covid-19 Vaccination Strategy and also seeking a directive to the Centre to provide sufficient fund to the State government for vaccination and other cases came up for hearing. Counsel for the petitioner pointed out that the private hospitals and big corporate companies were given preference over the request of the State government for supply of vaccines by the manufacturers.

Private players being preferred

During the hearing of the cases, the court asked the Centre how the private hospitals and entities were able to procure vaccines even when requests from the State Government were pending before the vaccine manufacturing companies. The reality was that the private players were getting preference over the government request. The Centre should try to see that priority was given to the request of the government for vaccine supply, the court orally added.

The court also directed the Centre to inform the court whether the request of the Kerala government for supply of vaccines from the non-governmental quota could be prioritised.

Passport number on vaccination certificate

Meanwhile, acting on another public interest litigation, the Bench directed the Centre government to consider a plea for including the original brand name of the Covidshield vaccine, “Oxford–AstraZeneca Covid -19 vaccine” as well as the passport number on the vaccination certificates of the non-Resident Indians.

The court while directing the Centre to take a decision on the plea in three weeks observed that the plea required meritorious consideration by the Centre government.

The order came on the petition filed by Mustafa Vadakkam Parambil, Vice President, Kerala Muslim Cultural Centre, Jeddah and another NRI employed in Saudi Arabia. According to them, non-inclusion of the vaccine name and passport number in the vaccination certificates would affect their travel plan and their prospect of re-joining duties in foreign countries. If passengers were immunized with two doses, several restrictions including institutional quarantine imposed by some countries for those arriving from other countries would be relaxed.

KV Sohan, State Attorney appearing for the government, submitted that the Centre had fixed different pricing for the vaccines. He alleged that the Centre’s vaccine policy was encouraging black marketing of vaccines by private players. In fact, there should be uniform prices for the vaccines and private companies and entities should not be allowed to take advantage of the pandemic situation.

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