The Delhi High Court in the case Parminder Singh v Union Of India And Ors observed that India has taken huge strides in providing the medical facilities with the latest technologies and has qualified the professionals at an accessible cost, it has also been stated by the court and stated that the courts cannot take decision on procurement of an instruments in hospitals as it being a matter of policy. The division bench comprising of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad in the case observed and the court dismissed a public interest litigation which is moved by one Parminder Singh wherein seeking directions for ensuring availability of video laryngoscopes in the healthcare system for managing the difficult caused in intubation systems.
The court while calling the petition ill-conceived and stated that no data has been provided by Singh that absence of video laryngoscope has been resulted in a number of failures leading to deaths of patients.
The court stated that the petition is ill conceived and the Petitioner has been only used as a front by the manufacturers of video laryngoscope who only wish for promoting their products. Therefore, the court witnessed that the jurisdiction of Public Interest Litigation which is being misused only for securing the personal benefits and such PILs are abuse of the process of law which must be discouraged. The court stated while taking the judicial notice of the fact that many patients from neighbouring countries come to India for availing the facilities which is being provided by the hospitals. It has also been noted by the court that Singh being not a doctor and has not done any research work wherein demonstrating that unless a video laryngoscope is not used, under the process of laryngoscopy it will end in a failure. However, the plea seems to be sponsored by certain manufacturers for promoting the video laryngoscope technology produced by them and are abusing the judicial process by filing the present PIL. It has been observed by the bench that laryngoscopy being a common procedure which is being done in all hospitals which does not even require hopitalization, wherein it is added that courts cannot force governments to procure video laryngoscope in all hospitals as the same being a matter of policy. The court stated that it being a well settled that the Courts do not run governments and decisions to procure instruments in hospitals and are taken by the governments which depends on several circumstances. The same being not on courts for taking a decision whether video laryngoscope should be mandatorily made available or not. Accordingly, the court dismissed the petition and warned Singh for not filing “such frivolous petitions” in future.
