Night curfew has yielded good results, should extend till Jan: Gujarat HC

The Gujarat High Court, while taking up the suo motu public interest litigation on Covid-19 situation in Gujarat on Thursday, opined that the state “should” extend the night curfew upto January, as it has yielded “good results” till now.

The division bench of Chief Justice Vikram Nath and Justice JB Pardiwala sought to know from the state government on the status of night curfew and if it plans to extend the same beyond December 31.

During hearing, Justice Pardiwala told advocate General Kamal Trivedi, representing the state government, “You also need to be careful four to five days before January 14… you’ll have to come out with some norms/guidelines with respect to January 14 celebrations (of Uttarayan) also. This Uttarayan should not spoil the entire show again. Your pre-Diwali efforts yielded good results. Post-Diwali you landed up in trouble. January 14 is a big show in Ahmedabad, in fact across Gujarat.”

Chief Justice Vikram Nath asked the Advocate General (AG), “Is night curfew continuing? Is it likely to continue till January?”

The AG informed the court that though it is the plan in “all probability”, an official decision is yet to be taken, which would be confirmed following a meeting of the core committee comprising senior bureaucrats of the state government.

The AG added that they will “see to it that it (night curfew) continues (until January)”.

The bench responded that “it should continue…because that’s what is giving good results”.

Justice Pardiwala added that the state government need not worry “about people getting disappointed (by a decision of an extended night curfew)…People may get disappointed but they can celebrate it one year later”.

The court also asked the state government to be more cautious from December 25, 2020 to January 2, 2021.