The Jharkhand High Court gave a month’s time to the State Government for procuring remaining four ambulances to be stationed on National Highways to minimize the deaths caused due to delay in providing medical assistance to the accident victims on it.
Appearing in person before a Division bench comprising Chief Justice PK Mohanty and Justice Ananda Sen, Additional Chief Secretary, Health, Sudhir Tripathy told the court that since those vehicles were highly equipped having modern equipments, they require experts views and hence consume more time to procure them.
“The Additional Chief Secretary also informed the court that estimate for the ambulances has already been provided to the NHAI following which the court directed it to provide funds to the State Government within 10 days,” said Health Department Counsel Rajeev Ranjan Mishra. The court also directed the State Health Department to complete the procurement process within the shortest possible time treating it as an emergency provision, he added.
“The case will be put up again on April 17 where the NHAI has to tell the court whether they have transferred the money or not and the State Government will tell how far they have gone towards the procurement of ambulances under emergency provisions,” said Mishra.
Mishra pleaded that since the ambulances are highly equipped their procurement was a lengthy process and hence asked for three months’ time.
On the issue of providing monetary relief to the deceased family, the State Government informed the Court that there was no provision of providing financial assistance to family members in case death occurs during accidents in the
State.
“The court then asked the State Government to file an affidavit that there was no such provision for the deceased family….. Then they will see what all policies are there in the State on the point of compensation due to negligence,” said Amicus Curie in the case Hemant Shikarwar.
Remarkably, the NHAI has handed over six ambulances to the State Government to take care of victims of road accidents on national highways in Jharkhand while it has to provide funds for the remaining four ambulances.
The division bench was hearing a PIl initiated suo motto earlier this year following the death of an advocate Dharmendra Kumar in a road accident near Morangi in Hazaribagh on January 21 on Ranchi-Hazaribagh stretch of NH-33.
Kumar, who was on court work, was travelling on a two-wheeler when a trailer hit his bike in the evening.
It was alleged in the petition filed by the Advocates’ Association that despite the accident, deceased was not administered proper treatment within time due to which he died and the same has once again exposed the sorry state of affairs with no empathy from either the police personnel or the medical fraternity in dealing with accident cases.
It was also alleged that there were no ambulance on the National Highways within that area for more than an hour. Even police personnel of Charhi Police Station, who reached there, refused to help saying the area did not come under their territorial jurisdiction.