BIJAN KUMAR MAHAJAN Vs. STATE OF ASSAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Director of Health Services, Assam undertook a programme of administering Vitamin-A to the children of the age group of 1 to 5 years initially in the year 1999. The third round in the third phase of the said programme was carried out through out the State on 11.11.2001 in the financial and logistic support of UNICEF. A target of 31,74,278 numbers of children within one group of 1 to 5 years was laid down for the programme on 11.11.2001. The main objectives of the programme were- i) to reduce blindness, ii) to lower the risk of death in a child by 23 percent, iii) to reduce malaria attack by 40 percent, iv) to reduce mortality from diarrhoea by 40 percent, v) to reduce fatality death from measles, vi) protection from diseases and infection for growth and development of children. The programme for 11.11.2001 was designated as the third round of the third phase of pulse Vitamin-Acampaign. The first phase of this campaign had been earlier conducted only in the districts of Kamrup and Barpeta on 24th October, 99 as a pilot project. The second phase of the said campaign was conducted on 26th March, 2000 in the districts of Kamrup, Bongaigaon, Nagaon, Sonitpur and Darrang. The third phase had two eadier rounds, the first round having being conducted on November, 2 000 and the second round on 3rd June, 2001. The administrations of pulse vitamin-A during first and second phase and first and second rounds of the third phase did not have any adverse report involving illness or death of children. However, as soon as the third round of the third phase of the administration of Vitamin- A to children was conducted on 11th November, 2001, a number of reports started coming in from the districts about children falling ill with various complaints and also of death of a number of children. The death reported after the third round of the third phase of the campaign was 23. A number of enquiries were conducted into the incidents of death district wise by the district administration concerned, health officials and representatives of UNICEF into the causes and extent of the deaths and illness of the affected children. The petitioners did not find satisfactory answer to the death caused by administration of Vitamin-A doses to the children within the age group of 1 to 5 years and for the illness of large number of children who have been administered Vitamin-A under the programme, approached the High Court by filing the present petition praying for amongst other things, an enquiry by an independent body into the cause and reasons for death and sickness of children following administering Pulse Vitamin-A solutions in the UNICEF sponsored programme; to provide adequate compensation to the near relatives of the children who have died and have fallen sick out of administering of Pulse Vitamin-A and for a direction to the authorities to take appropriate measures in future programmes to ensure that such tragedy do not occur.

(2.) The Division Bench of this Court by interim order dated 5.6.2002 directed the Director General of Police, Assam to have an enquiry conducted by an officer not below the rank of D.I.G. (C.I.D) who has submitted its report on 25.10.2002. The enquiry was conducted keeping in view the allegations made in the writ petition as well as the directions issued by the Gauhati High Court and taking into consideration issue of public interest involved in the matter. For the purposes of enquiry the spread was on the following points-

(3.) From the aforesaid reports submitted before the Health Department it appears that in most of the cases of post Vitamin-A death the child had been suffering from some existing ailment or malnutrition. It also revealed that in none of the cases in which post mortem examination was done, the post mortem report or the FSL report on viscera has attributed the cause of death to Vitamin-A solution. But it appears that the administration of Vitamin-A did induce certain common symptoms in the children with a differing time gap in individual cases. The commission has found that the infrastructure for conduct of the programme by the Health Department down to the district and PHC level worked satisfactorily and programme went ahead without breakdown.