The Delhi government on Tuesday evening has withdrawn the order to convert 100 rooms of Ashoka Hotel as a COVID health facility for Justices and other judicial officers of the Delhi High Court and their families. Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia tweeted, "Issued directions to withdraw this order immediately."
This comes after the Delhi High Court said it has not made any request for creating COVID-19 facilities for its judges, staff and their families in a five star hotel and the order saying so was "very misleading".
Taking suo motu cognisance of the reports which said that 100 rooms of Ashoka Hotel in national capital have been converted into a COVID health facility for judges of Delhi High Court on its request, a bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli said,"No communication has been made to anyone in this regard".
"This is very very misleading. The high court has not made any such request for setting up beds in any such five star hotel," the bench said and added that the order passed by the sub-divisional magistrate was wrong as the state cannot create a facility exclusively for a class.
The bench said the high court cannot ask for creating such facility which is going to be discriminatory. It further said that when the Delhi government was unable to provide oxygen to everybody, it was talking of providing a 100-bed facility for the high court judges.
On Monday, the Delhi government had passed an order to convert 100 rooms of Ashoka Hotel as a COVID health facility for Justices and other judicial officers of the Delhi High Court and their families.
In the order, the Delhi government said Primus Hospital in Chanakyapuri will run the Community Health Centre (CHC) facility at Ashoka Hotel.
(With ANI and PTI inputs)
