MOHAMMED ARIF JAMEEL Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Today, we are dealing with three main issues;

(2.) Going by the material placed on record by the State Government as well as the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (for short, 'BBMP'), the situation is alarming. Firstly, we deal with the availability of beds in the city of Bengaluru. On the last date of hearing, i.e. 23rd April 2021, the following was the number of total bed capacity in the city of Bengaluru.

(3.) We find that there is only a marginal increase in the total strength of the beds in the city. Such marginal increase may not be sufficient to cope up with the ever raising active COVID-19 cases in the city of Bengaluru. We direct the State Government and BBMP to make immediate efforts to make substantial increase in the availability of beds. The reason is that as per the instructions of the learned counsel appearing for BBMP, at 11.15 a.m. today, only 74 HDU beds were available in the city. The available ICU beds and ICU beds with ventilator is 20 and 14, respectively. This is a very alarming situation in a city where there are more than 15,000 positive cases reported everyday.