The Supreme Court on Thursday opened the doors of nearly 40 private hospitals in the national capital to poor patients from all over India under subsidised land allocation rules by dismissing their appeals challenging the validity of the rules upheld by the Delhi high court.
The apex court order would make nearly 1,000 beds available to those with monthly family incomes of `6,422 (on the basis of daily wages of unskilled workers) in the 40 private hospitals in Delhi allotted land by the government at nominal rates, said senior lawyer Ashok Aggrawal, who had fought the case on behalf of the marginalised sections. He said that under the guidelines framed by the Justice Qureshi Commission to draw up a uniform formula, 10 per cent beds have to be reserved for the poor by private hospitals and they have to open their out patient departments for 25 per cent of such patients.
A bench of Justices R.V. Raveendran and A.K. Patnaik said private hospitals could not “wriggle out” of this. “Why did the hospitals take the land if they did not want to meet the provision of the laid down clause? Why don’t you hand the land back to the government,” they said.