Supreme Court seeks response from Centre in plea against "primitive, 18th century practice" of affixing posters outside COVID-19 patients' homes

The Supreme Court today asked the Central government to reply to a plea questioning the need to affix posters outside the homes of persons affected by COVID-19..The Bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, R Subhash Reddy and MR Shah has sought a reply within two weeks..The Court initially awaited the presence of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who was busy with the Central Vista hearing. It then gave time to the Union to reply with a short affidavit in two weeks.The Centre informed the Court that the plea has been forwarded to the concerned department..During the hearing, Justice Bhushan observed,"We cannot issue directions to each state, one circular should be followed by all."Justice Shah also observed that the Court "cannot issue orders in every such case.".The petition filed through Advocate Chinmoy Sharma and AOR Puneet Taneja has challenged the decision taken by state governments under the National Disaster Management Act, 2005 to affix posters outside the homes of COVID-19 patients who are in isolation. .The plea also challenges the practice of forwarding of names of COVID-19 patients by state health departments to Resident Welfare Associations (RWA) as being unlawful. .It is stated that the circulation of such names on WhatsApp groups etc is a violation of the fundamental rights of privacy and the right to live with dignity as enshrined under Article 21 of the Constitution..The petitioner had filed a similar plea in the Delhi High Court, in reply to which the Delhi government on October 8 had taken a decision to stop the practice of pasting such posters..Have issued orders to stop pasting posters outside homes of those in COVID-19 isolation: Delhi Government to Delhi High Court.The petitioner avers that patients who are undergoing mental trauma and weakness due to COVID-19 have also been subjected to "stigmatisation by the members of neighborhood and community" due to such a practice. .Moreover, such posters lead to COVID-19 patients becoming the talk of the community and a topic of "idle gossip", the plea states..Stating that the decision to affix such posters violates the doctrine of proportionality, the petitioner claims that such a primitive practice was only carried out in the 18th century during the Plague..The Court has thus been asked to pass directions to all the states who are still affixing posters outside the homes of COVID-19 positive patients to stop such a practice forthwith and take down all existing posters. It also seeks directions to all states to stop the circulation of the names of patients on WhatsApp groups and among RWAs.