Community Service to Mask rule violators: Supreme Court stays Gujarat High Court order

Gandhinagar: The Government of Gujarat has moved the Supreme Court against Gujarat High Court order directing the State to assign community service at covid centre to violators for breach of mask and social distancing rules. The Supreme Court after hearing stayed the Gujarat High Court order stating that there was substance in the challenge. A Bench comprising Justice Ashok Bhushan, R Subhash Reddy and M R Shah heard the special leave petition filed by Gujarat government. The Supreme Court directed Gujarat to ensure vigorous adherence of Centre’s COVID-19 guidelines on wearing masks and social distancing.

The Gujarat High Court had in its order yesterday asked State government to send all violators of mask and social distancing rules to covid centres for community service for five to fifteen days for daily four to five hours. The Government had earlier told the court that implementation and tracking would be an issue while awarding community service to violators at covid centres.

The High Court bench headed by Chief Justice Vikram Nath was of opinion that such compulsory community service would create deterrence effect as the present provision of just fine of Rs. 1,000 has not been enough to create fear among violators.

The State government yesterday evening held a high level meeting chaired by Chief Minister to discuss the High Court verdict but made no announcement after meeting, as practically the implementation of High Court order was not found feasible. There are not enough jobs to be done at covid centres matching to the number of violators that are caught for violation of mask/social distancing rules. The High Court had directed to assign non-medical duties to violators, but there are not enough covid centres and not enough tasks to do at available covid centres that can be assigned to all violators caught for not wearing mask. For each non-medical duty at Covid centres sufficient number of persons are already working. In the period of severe pandemic, it would be risky to move violators to covid centres. Each person would be needed to wear PPE kit in case they are sent to covid centres. Tracking that whether each violator has appeared at prescribed covid centre for daily four to five hours for five to fifteen days would be another task added to government machinery in addition to existing pandemic linked burden. The State government was especially worried that suppose if some healthy person is sent for community service at Covid centre, what if he/she is tested positive after spending hours and days at covid centre doing non-medical duty. DeshGujarat