Divulge correct case and death figures, high court tells govt

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat high court on Wednesday insisted that the state government should, in public interest, disclose correct figures relating to Covid-19 cases and deaths.
The division bench said, “It is necessary to disclose the true and correct figures of Covid deaths and Covid cases so that people may be able to understand and comprehend the seriousness of the situation.People will not take things for granted. This will definitely have a psychological impact on society at large. This aspect should be borne in mind by the state government as a suggestion from this court.”
The issue arose on September 4 during the hearing of the suo motu PIL on Covid-19, when senior counsel Anshin Desai accused the state government of suppressing correct Covid-19 figures. He submitted that hiding correct figures is not in the public interest. He had highlighted the case of Surat, where the authorities faced allegations of hiding the number of Covid deaths.
The high court said that this was a highly disputed question of facts. The court could have seriously ordered the government to come up with figures but it was not making any allegations and taking the figures being disclosed by the government as correct, but “if there is any element of truth in what has been pointed out by Mr. Desai, then surely it is not in public interest”, the judges said.