PANAJI
The Bombay High Court at Goa has asked the Goa government to insist that people entering the State be asked to produce a Covid-19 negative certificate that has been issued 72-hours prior from next week saying there was “no justification in the State of Goa not insisting upon a negativity certificate from persons who seek entry into Goa at this crucial juncture.”
SEVERAL PETITIONS
The instructions from the High Court came after it took up a bunch of petitions filed by the South Goa Advocates Association and another by Covid volunteers including Armando Gonsalves and Shruti Chaturvedi and a third by activist Roshan Matias, who besides asking for restrictions had also asked the government to come clean on the present situation of the State’s response to the Covid pandemic.
Noting that neighbouring Maharashtra has imposed similar restrictions on people entering from five States, Goa among them, the High Court directed that by next week May 10, the State should put in place a mechanism to ensure that all persons entering the State have to produce a negative certificate while also ensuring that the supply of essentials was not interrupted.
NO JUSTIFICATION
“We see no justification in the State of Goa not insisting upon a negativity certificate from persons who seek entry into Goa at this crucial juncture when reports indicate that the positivity rate in Goa is as high as 52%. Some suitable mechanisms can always be formulated by the State to ensure that some testing facilities are available at the borders or entry points so the supplies of essentialities or in the ingress of essential personnel are not affected. But to permit virtually unrestricted entry in such critical times is not justified,” the Bombay High Court bench of Justices M S Sonak and M S Jawalkar, said.
“The State Government of its own should have imposed these minimum restrictions in public interest… the State could have and still can come out with a suitable protocol to mitigate the issue of supplies of essential goods and services. Such minimum restrictions which several States have also adopted are called if the epidemic is to be contained. Therefore, by way of an interim order, we direct the State Administration to ensure that no persons are permitted entry into the State unless they possess a negative certificate obtained within 72 hours from the time they seek entry into the State,” the High Court ruled.
ALL IS WELL?
“Based on this unrestricted entry, Goa is touted as one of the few tourist destinations where all is well. This is neither fair to the populace in Goa already suffering from the overstretched medical infrastructure nor to the unsuspecting tourists who have to very often avail of the overstretched facilities at a great price,” the High Court observed.
The High Court, however, has given the State government of filing an affidavit to set out why if they wish that the order seeking mandatory Covid-19 test at the borders is required to be varied or modified.
“Until modified, however, a negativity certificate will be a must for entry into the State of Goa,” the High Court ruled.
NOT SEALING BORDERS
The High Court has however clarified that this isn’t to call for sealing the borders.
“This is only a case where steps are taken to ensure that the persons who are entering into Goa are not already tested as Covid positive so that they do not contribute to the spread of the epidemic and at the same time are cared for better in their own State,” the High Court said.
When the matter of insisting on a negative certificate came up for hearing, the Advocate General told the Court that “the decision as to whether a negativity certificate should be insisted upon or not is basically a policy decision.”
He pointed out that workers are coming from the neighbouring states of Maharashtra and Karnataka and any insistence on a negativity certificate will affect the essential works in the State.
He told the Court that Goa has to rely on the neighbouring States for most of the essential supplies and the insistence of any such negativity certificate will again impact such supplies even pointing out that even the Central Government does not support sealing borders of any States during these times.
BETTER SOPS NEEDED
The Court was however unwilling to buy the argument.
“No doubt, some difficulties are bound to arise when it comes to essential supplies… For this, the State Administration will have to come out with some adequate protocol to ensure that the essential supplies are not disturbed and at the same time, Covid positive persons are not granted easy entry into the State whose medical infrastructure is already overstretched. The essential supplies can as well be made through persons who are tested and found negative. Some passes can as well be issued to such persons waiving the requirement of repeated testing. But citing such instances to justify wholesale waiver of restrictions in such critical times is not justifiable,” the High Court said.
The petitioners had placed before the High Court the number of people who arrived by flight, train and road who had tested positive over the previous few weeks.
“It is apparent that practically each day travellers by road, flight, or train entering into Goa are found to be Covid positive. If this is the status of the tested cases, it is reasonable to estimate a similar or perhaps larger number of positive cases that enter Goa. The numbers of such cases are significant in the context of the State of Goa, which has a population of only about 16-lakh or thereabouts. Besides, the website has only indicated the detected cases. Now that there is no requirement for anybody entering in the State of Goa to have a negativity certificate, it is not possible to assess the actual number of positive cases entering into Goa each day,” the High Court surmised.
“This will not prevent the State Government from formulating a protocol to deal with the issues of essential supplies and the procedure for entry of the persons involved in essential supplies,” the High Court said.
