Justice Muhammad Khalid Mehmood Khan of the Lahore High Court has summoned the health secretary on April 29. The court is hearing a petition seeking action on children’s deaths due to measles and fixing of responsibility for the failure to control the disease.
The judge directed the secretary to bring the relevant record.
On Friday, the petitioner’s counsel said the government and the provincial health secretary had failed to file a reply on his petition while children continued to die of measles. He requested that the health secretary be directed to personally appear and inform the court about efforts being made to control the epidemic. He said negligence on part of the government which could not control measles which became preventable more than 50 years ago. He alleged the government had purchased defective vaccine.
Judicial Activism Panel Chairman Muhammad Azhar Siddique has moved the petition submitting that the Punjab in particular and Pakistan generally had been affected by measles. He said the disease was preventable. He said it was the responsibility of the state to provide the best possible health facilities.
He submitted that both federal and provincial governments failed miserably to control the measles outbreak. He said the measles vaccine was not available in the province.
He requested that directions be given to federal and Punjab government officials to control the disease on a war footing.
He also requested that the respondents be directed to give a comprehensive report fixing responsibility for the outbreak.
He said appropriate directions might be given to the federal and provincial governments to establish a permanent authority to deal with dengue fever and measles.
Power outage not reduced
Meanwhile, The Lahore High Court chief justice was not happy when he was told on Friday that despite the court’s orders on April 19, loadshedding had not been reduced to eight hours a day.
Justice Umar Ata Bandial issued notices, for April 29, to the federal government, Wapda and Lesco, among others, on an application seeking action against them for not complying with the court’s orders.
Justice Bandial observed that the court would ensure the provision of basic facilities to all citizens, without any discrimination. He then directed Wapda to produce experts who could explain why there was no respite in loadshedding.
Judicial Activism Panel chairman Muhammad Azhar Siddique had moved the application in his already pending petition against loadshedding. The applicant submitted that there was still 16 to 18 hour long loadshedding in Lahore.
He requested that Wapda be directed to produce all record relating to loadshedding and its agreements for power generation. Siddique said the public was suffering because Wapda had failed to control power theft.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 27th, 2013.