Maharastra: After being pulled up by the Bombay High Court for temporarily suspending the license of a private Hospital, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is going to withdraw its order.
The BMC had served an order to one of the private hospitals of Mahim revoking its license for one month for allegedly overcharging COVID -19 patients. However, after the Bombay High Court expressed its dissatisfaction with this act of civic body, BMC chief Iqbal Singh Chahal informed the court that they will be withdrawing the suspension.
The court said that the civic order was a 'knee-jerk' reaction to a video on social media that had gone viral last month. The said video had claimed that a Covid-19 patient died at the hospital due to gross negligence of the authorities.
BMC had revoked the license of the private hospital under rule 10 of COVID-19 regulations under the Epidemic Disease Act after receiving complaints that the hospital was allegedly fleecing patients.
The bench of justice comprising of SG kathawala and Madhav Jama instructed the municipal body's commissioner to explain the reason behind the suspension order.
The Indian Express reports that the petitioner submitting against the BMC order, challenged its validity stating that the Civic body has taken a rash decision reacting on a video that went viral on social media last month. The video alleged that one of the COVID patients passed away due to the extreme negligence of the hospital authority. The hospital also claimed that the patient was in fact tested COVID negative and there was no negligence involved.
The counsel appearing for the petitioner Simmi Purohit with Dharam Jumani submitted that the Show Cause Notice issued against the hospital did not have any specific details or charges mentioned. While considering the submission of the petitioner the bench observed that there are several flaws in the steps taken by BMC authority against the hospital. First, the 30 days notice time was given to the hospital before revoking its license over the overcharging of COVID-19 patients but it was given 48 hours to respond. The bench also observed that the video which BMC referred too could not be verified and BMC also did not consider the response from the hospital, reports the daily. Moreover, while suspending the license the specific cases of overcharging are not properly mentioned by BMC.
Times of India reports that the hospital stated that it was 'shocked' to receive the suspension order on the pretext of a viral video. The bench was not satisfied on the BMC's action. The bench questioned the civic body's power to suspend the license under the Maharashtra Covid-19 regulation 2020. The court also stated that there have been several complaints of overcharging against many of the large hospitals but no such step as revoking of license has been implemented by BMC against them.
The court asked the Commissioner 'how can you function like this?' Appearing via video conference, civic chief Chahal immediately agreed to withdraw the suspension order. The High Court permitted the Civic body to freely issue show cause notice but the details should be specified on it and decisions should be taken following the protocol, the court stated.
The BMC commissioner then agreed to withdraw the suspension order. The bench further granted liberty to BMC officials to issue a fresh show-cause notice to hospitals and pass an appropriate order as per law.
The court further asked BMC officials, in future, to ascertain allegations made against any hospital before taking any legal action against it.
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