HC asks non-operational pvt hospital to handover keys to BCD for using as COVID facility for lawyers

The Delhi High Court Monday asked a non-operational private hospital here to handover its keys to the Bar Council of Delhi (BCD) to inspect and make necessary arrangements for making it functional for providing COVID Care facilities to lawyers and their families.

However, the issue of handing over of the keys ran into controversy as the claim of a lawyer representing the hospital in the hearing was disputed by another advocate who said that the people concerned with the medical establishment are not aware of the proceedings in the high court. The order was passed by a bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli after an advocate, who claimed to be representing Rockland Hospital in Dwarka, submitted that its owners were in Saudi Arabia and they were unable to run the facility currently but were ready to hand over the keys of the property to the government authorities to use it.

However, after the proceedings, another lawyer claimed that he was representing the persons who were supposed to manage the hospital.

Advocate Prateek Singh told journalists that someone has falsely represented the hospital and made a false statement in the court.

When contacted by scribes, the lawyer who first claimed to be representing the owners of the hospital, clarified that he was making submissions on behalf of the Dwarka Court Bar Association and not for hospital.

Advocate Singh said he is for the hospital which was taken over from the previous owners in 2016 and is now named as Medeor Hospital and not Rockland Hospital.

He added that the management was not aware of the proceedings at all and they had not authorized anyone to make a statement on their behalf in the court and will be making appropriate submissions in the court on the next date on May 6.

During the hearing, a group of lawyers and BCD, represented through its chairman and senior advocate Ramesh Gupta, were urging the court that they have arranged for a guest house for providing medical facilities to lawyers and they need to be attached to a hospital where they can get ICU facilities.

Gupta said BCD has the arrangement of medical and paramedic staff, medicines and ambulances and will take over Rockland Hospital as a licensee and make it operational and the management will be done by the bar body.

The court asked the advocate, who represented himself to be for the hospital in the hearing, to handover the keys to Gupta and BCD may get the property inspected to make it operational and listed the matter for reporting compliance on May 6.

The court was informed that the hospital has 77 beds and 6 ventilators.

At the outset, senior advocate Rahul Mehra, representing the Delhi government, submitted that they were taking up the issue of providing medical facilities to lawyers and something will be done soon.

A plea was filed by advocate Manoj Kumar Singh seeking appropriate direction for setting up COVID health facility for the exclusive use by advocates registered with BCD and their family members.

The bench held an over four-hour long hearing on issues including oxygen crisis and other COVID-19 related issues that Delhi is grappling with.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)