Allahabad HC orders one week lockdown in 5 UP cities including Lucknow, Kanpur

Prayagraj: Allahabad High Court, dissatisfied with the Uttar Pradesh government’s effort to curb increase in Corona cases, has directed to impose lockdown in 5 big cities of the state for next one week from Monday night.

The five cities where the court has asked the UP government to impose the lockdown are State capital Lucknow, Prayagraj, Varanasi, Kanpur and Gorakhpur.

The court says that the lockdown will commence from the night of Monday (tonight) and will end on April 27 morning.

A division bench of the court comprising Justice Siddhartha Varma and Ajit Kumar passed the order on a PIL filed by different people and organisations here on Monday.

The court in its order said, “Let a copy of this order be sent to the Chief Secretary, Government of Uttar Pradesh today itself to enforce our above directions forthwith from the night of 19.04.2021 till 26.04.2021 in the cities of Prayagraj, Lucknow, Varanasi, Kanpur Nagar, and Gorakhpur. Copies of this order shall also be placed before the District Magistrates of the concerned districts.”

However, the judges said, “Our above directions are nowhere close to a complete lockdown. We are conscious of the fact that before imposing a lockdown the concerned government has to work out various modalities. In this order if we have not imposed a lockdown it does not mean that we do not believe in it. We are still of the view that if we want to break the chain a lockdown for a duration of at least two weeks is a must.”

The bench came down heavily on the UP government as well on the State Election Commission holding the panchayat polls.

“Economy, economy and economy is the only tune that the government is all the time harping upon, but bread and butter if you take to a person who needs oxygen and medication, it will be of no use to him. You may have grocery shops with full of eatables and industries which produce bikes and cars but all this won’t be of any use if your medical shops run out of stock of life saving drugs like Remdesivir in the current surge of pandemic. It is a shame that while the Government knew of the magnitude of the second wave it never planned things in advance,” it commented.

The bench further said if hospitals are not able to provide beds and oxygen we are sure that cities like Prayagraj, Lucknow, Varanasi, Kanpur and Gorakhpur in the State of UP cannot provide medical aid to even 10% of the populations at any given point of time. If hospitals’ staff and medicos go ill for the relentless services to cure people in the pandemic, people would start losing their lives and all pomp and show of development would be of no avail.

The court said in such above situation, the night curfew in the name of Corona Curfew and the weekend Curfew are nothing else but a mere eyewash. It was probably an effort to show that our last order had been taken care of. We are however, not satisfied at all. We see people are largely not following our order for putting masks on their faces nor, the police could ensure 100% masking till date.

“We must record our displeasure the way government and the State Election Commission proceeded to hold election forcing teachers and other government staff to perform duties exposing themselves to the threat of pandemic that looms large these days. The police was virtually shifted to polling places giving priority to election above public health,” they said while added the state of Uttar Pradesh where COVID-19 has taken the form of a pandemic the authorities which were holding the Panchayat elections, were fully in the know of the fact that no activity had to take place where it was not possible to keep people away from each other.

The court also issued guidelines for the Lockdown in these five cities which includes:

- All establishments be it government or private, except financial institutions and financial departments, medical and health services, industrial and scientific establishments, essential services including municipal functions, and public transport, shall remain closed till April 26. The judiciary will however, function on its own discretion;

- All shopping complexes and malls shall remain closed till 26th April, 2021;

- All grocery shops and other commercial shops excluding medical shops, with more than three workers shall remain closed till April 26;

- All hotels, restaurants and even the small eating points on thelas etc. shall remain closed till April 26;

- All institutions like educational institutions and other institutions relating to other disciplines and activities be it government, semi government or private shall remain closed including for their teachers and instructors and other staff till April 26 (this direction is for the whole of Uttar Pradesh);

- No social functions and gatherings including marriage functions shall be permitted till April 26. However, in case of already fixed marriages a necessary further permission would have to be taken from the District Magistrate of the concerned district. Gatherings would be limited to 25 persons and the district magistrate concerned shall take decision after giving due consideration to the prevailing situation of the impact of Covid 19 including notification of containment zones in the area where such marriage has to take place;

- All religious activities in public of any kind is directed to remain suspended till April 26;

- All religious establishments of any kind are directed to remain closed till April 26;

- All hawkers including fruits and vegetable vendors, milk vendors and bread vendors, shall go off the road by 11 AM every day till April 26;

- Containment zones shall be notified everyday in two leading Hindi and English newspapers having wide circulation in the districts of Prayagraj, Lucknow, Varanasi, Kanpur Nagar/ Dehat and Gorakhpur.

- All public movements on roads would remain restricted completely, subject to above directions. Movements would be only allowed in case of medical help and emergencies.

-In addition to the above directions, we direct the State Government to go robust for implementing the current vaccination programme. (UNI)