Patna: Contradictory affidavits on deaths in Buxar district irk Patna high court

PATNA: The Patna high court on Monday took exception to the contradictory affidavits filed by the chief secretary and Patna divisional commissioner on the number of deaths in Buxar. While the chief secretary affidavit mentioned only six deaths in Buxar since March 1, the commissioner submitted that altogether 789 cremations took place only at Chardham Ghat of Buxar in ten days from May 5 to 14.
The division bench of Chief Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice S Kumar, while hearing the PILs of Shivani Kaushik, Rohit Kumar and Gaurav Kumar Singh, observed that the facts revealed in the commissioner's affidavit were disturbing. If 789 cremations took place only at one ghat in ten days then what would be the position in the entire district and that, too, of people from all faiths.
The bench orally directed advocate general Lalit Kishore to caution the officers or else it would amount to filing of false or incomplete affidavit.
Refraining from making any comments over the contradictory affidavits, the court directed the state government to reply again before Thursday clarifying the number of deaths from Covid-19 and other reasons along with age groups in the district for hearing on Friday.
It also pulled up the state government for not updating data on official website site recording the number of deaths and births. The commissioner’s affidavit also mentioned that 81 bodies were recovered from the Ganga in Buxar last week and they were later buried after DNA profiling and following other procedures. The bodies had come from upstream in Uttar Pradesh. In fact, the court had sought the state government’s reply on the recovery of bodies found floating in the Ganga in Buxar district.
Amicus curiae Mrigank Mauli brought to light that either there is one or no government ambulance at all in several districts of Bihar having more than 10 lakh population. Citing his report before the high court, Mauli submitted that Araria is one such district with a population of more than 10 lakh but no government ambulance for needy patients.
The division bench of Chief Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice S Kumar orally remarked that the state government can crowdfund from the rich in the state or use funds allocated to lawmakers for public benefit to purchase ambulances amid the pandemic. The court would conduct hearing on reports of Mauli and a technical committee formed on its order on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Centre’s additional solicitor general KN Singh submitted that Bihar’s daily quota for procuring liquid oxygen has been further increased to 400 metric tonnes from earlier 300 metric tonnes. To this, the court directed the health department principal secretary to reply in two days about the infrastructure to procure the allocated daily quota, its storage and transportation to end users and if the increased quota is sufficient or not.
Singh also raised the issue of a large number of oxygen cylinders found lying in the garbage near the government hospital at Gardanibagh, as also reported in the media. Singh also submitted that a large number of oxygen cylinders had been already handed over to the state by the central government and more were on the way. The court also orally asked the advocate general to apprise what target the state government had set for vaccinating the younger people in the state.