Why isn't Gujarat exercising authority over AMC: Gujarat HC

The division bench of Gujarat high court came down heavily on the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), which has been hearing a suo motu public interest litigation over the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, for its orders including admitting only patients from Ahmedabad in the AMC-run hospitals.

The division bench headed by the Gujarat HC chief justice Vikram Nath also asked why the state government was not exercising its control over the AMC. “We fail to understand as to why the state has not issued directions to the corporation, which is an agency of state only, constituted and established under a state Act viz. The Gujarat Provincial Municipal Corporations Act, 1949, and would be within the control and supervision of the state as provided in Chapter XXVIII thereof,” he said.

“The corporation cannot ignore the directions of the state. Why the state is not exercising its authority. There is no answer and why should the corporation have a different policy than the state is also not understood nor the same is amenable to any reasonable justification.” While AMC had earlier insisted that only the patients using a 108 ambulance will be admitted to a hospital, allegedly leading to severe loss of lives, the high court recorded that “108 ambulance facility is a scheme of the state government and not of the corporation, and therefore, whatever guidelines or policy of use of 108 ambulances is to be formulated by the state, the corporation would be bound to follow it”.


Insisting on transparency, the court said, “In the previous orders, we had pointed out that data of availability of beds should be displayed on a real-time basis so that there is no harassment to the patients from running from one hospital to another. We do not find any such response from the state in the present affidavit regarding the same and as such the harassment to the patients and attendants still continue.” The court further said that “if this information is made available of all the hospitals, which include the government, corporation, designated and private hospitals, it would become much more transparent and easier for the patients and their attendants”.