Panaji: The Bombay High Court at Goa on Friday ordered the state government and its agencies to proactively encourage and facilitate home deliveries of essentials during the lockdown period.
The Single bench comprising of Justice M S Sonak also ruled that it is not as if the people are interested in defying the curfew and queing in front of the grocery shops and pharmacies.
“The State Government and its agencies must be proactive in encouraging and facilitating home deliveries of essentials, so that, there is no need to visit grocery shops during the period of lock-down,” the HC ordered.
“It is not as if the people are interested in defying the curfew and queuing in front of the grocery shops and pharmacies. Therefore, if a robust system for home deliveries of essentials is in place, the implementation of the lockout and the policy of social distancing will be achieved,” the single bench observed.
The court disposed off the petitions filed by lawyers Abhjiit Gosavi and Rohit Bras de Sa against state government’s inability to provide essential commodities to the people during lockdown period.
The petitioners submitted before the Bench that their main purpose of filing Petitions was not to seek opening of the grocery shops 24 X 7, but was to ensure that there is a proper system for effecting home deliveries of groceries and other essentials.
The court observed that a system for making home deliveries has to be put in place at the earliest. “Even the directives of the National Disaster Management Authority and the Government of India propose encouragement to home deliveries,” the bench ruled.
The High Court ordered that the complete closure grocery shops without any proper system to effect home deliveries or to account for people who have no means to even avail home deliveries might possibly make it extremely
difficult for people to access essentials, which, as the term implies, are essential to life and essential to endure the unprecedented, but necessary lock-down.
The court also adviced the authorities that they “must not allow themselves to be over- influenced by the clamour of rival groups, however well intentioned they may be or be guided by any considerations of public pressure.”
“The clamour of seeming majorities or those that clamour the loudest, may not necessarily correspond to true public interest. The true public interest must be guided by scientific and medical opinion keeping in mind that the priority is to halt the spread of the virus and the pandemic,” it added.
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