THE MAHARASTHRA government on Tuesday told the Bombay High Court that minutes or records of the meeting of the state executive committee held under the Disaster Management (DM) Act, which took a decision to allow only fully vaccinated persons to avail public transport, have not been maintained. It said that however, the SOPs issued in that regard "were not unfair to the public at large and the decision was taken "without malafide." The court questioned the state, in order to support its decision, to show a past judgment rendered by constitutional courts, if any, wherein, even if decision making is flawed or defective, the ultimate decision is in such larger public interest that the court may overlook the defect. The central government reiterated its position that it has not framed any policy which discriminates between the vaccinated and unvaccinated persons by making inoculation mandatory. However, as a matter of "social obligation and larger public interest", everyone should get vaccinated to "join a collective fight against the pandemic," it said. "Merely because we are saying that everyone is expected to get vaccinated, one cannot be forced to get vaccinated against the wishes of any such person," Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh, appearing for the central government, submitted. A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Makarand S Karnik has been hearing pleas filed by activists Feroze Mithiborwala and Yohan Tengra, through advocates Tanveer Nizam and Nilesh Ojha, respectively, which challenged the state's SOPs, by seeking that all people in Mumbai Metropolitan Region be allowed to travel by local trains, irrespective of their vaccination status. On Tuesday, responding to court's query, senior advocate Anil Anturkar submitted that the record or minutes of the meeting in which the impugned decision was taken was not available due to administrative difficulties. However, the decision was taken as the Constitution permits reasonable restrictions in the "interest of general public" and same was not unfair, he said. The bench said that it had "hunch" about non-availability of records since the last hearing and questioned "if the state officers are so busy that they cannot even maintain a brief record of the said meeting." “It is absolutely undesirable that you (state counsel) are instructed to say that we are so busy in our administrative functions that we do not find time to even record the minutes,’’ the court said and asked the state to show a past judgment to support its argument during the next hearing on Thursday, February 10.
