In a public interest litigation filed against the displacement of leprosy patients living on the banks of the Ganga river in Haridwar, the High Court of Uttarakhand has made the Haridwar Development Authority a party in the case and asked the State Government whether it has made any policy for shifting the leprosy patients to any other place. Taking up the public interest litigation for hearing, the division bench of chief justice Ramesh Ranganathan and justice NS Dhanik also directed that the report on this be submitted within three weeks in the court.
According to the case details, an office bearer of a missionary non-governmental organisation based in Dehradun had written a letter to the chief justice stating that in the recent past, leprosy patients had also been removed from their dwellings during the removal of encroachments from along the banks of the Ganga river and other sites in Haridwar. It had been stated that the leprosy patients neither have any other home or arrangement to live. Having been removed from their dwellings, they are being forced to spend even rainy days out in the open. The leprosy patients have no place to live in and are being forced to live out in the open even during rainy days, the letter had State.
Taking cognisance of this, the high court took up the matter as a public interest litigation.