Consider complete lockdown for 2 days from May 1: Madras HC to TN and Puducherry

The Madras High Court on Monday directed the Tamil Nadu and Puducherry governments to consider declaring complete lockdown for two days on May 1 and May 2 when counting of votes polled in the April 6 Assembly elections will be taken upThe first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy gave the suggestion while passing further interim orders on an issue relating to alleged shortage of Remdesivir drug ventilators and beds and diversion of oxygen cylinders to other statesBased on newspaper reports the judges took up the issue by themselvesOn these two days movement of vehicles used in connection with votes counting and emergency services alone shall be allowedAn announcement to this effect might be made in advance preferably on April 28 so that the people of Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory would be put on alert the judges said adding they might also publish certain basic guidelines to be followed on those days by the COVID19 affected peopleBoth Tamil Nadu and Puducherry have put in a series of curbs starting Monday such as closure of places of worship spas beauty parlours and salons to stem the spread of coronavirusEarlier AdvocateGeneral Vijay Narayan informed the bench that steps would be taken to convert all the 1050 MTs of oxygen to be generated at the Sterlite unit in Tuticorin fit for medical useAn allparty meeting headed by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami had earlier in the day allowed the plant closed since May 2018 over pollution concerns to produce oxygen only for a fourmonth periodAs regards the query from the bench on curbing sale of Remdesivir used in Covid19 treatment in black market the Health Secretary submitted that an exclusively authorized centre to sell the drug has been established in Kilpauk in the cityA vial would be sold for Rs 1400 that too only to those who produce necessary documents Special squads have been formed to nab the blackmarketeers he said adding 2400 more beds would be added by the first week of MayThe Additional SolicitorGeneral told the judges that certain quantity of oxygen cylinders had been diverted to neighbouring states like Andhra Pradesh and Telangana only after consultation with the state governmentThe request of the state government not to divert oxygen anymore would be taken up with the Centre he addedSeemingly convinced with the submissions the bench adjourned the matter till ThursdayThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever