'Sorry, will not interfere': SC rejects Maha plea to cap non-Covid costs

New Delhi, July 19 The Supreme Court on Monday declined to interfere with a Bombay High Court order, quashing the Maharashtra government's notifications regulating amount charged by private hospitals and nursing homes to non-Covid patients.

A bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and M.R. Shah told the state government counsel that "non-Covid patients are bound to move to private hospitals, when you don't have necessary infrastructure. Sorry, we will not interfere".

Advocate Rahul Chitnis, representing the Maharashtra government, submitted that the appeal was filed challenging the high court's October 23, 2020 order, quashing the notifications relating to capping of price of treatment for non-Covid patients.

The bench pointed out that such notifications shouldn't be issued, when the state government itself does not have necessary infrastructure to treat non-Covid patients at government hospitals.

The state government had prescribed a rate card for private hospitals and nursing homes while treating non-Covid patients. The two notifications were issued in April and May last year.

The high court's Nagpur bench, quashing these notifications, had said the state does not have power to frame any law to regulate rates chargeable by private hospitals and nursing homes to non-Covid patients.

The court had held the Epidemic Diseases Act, the Disaster Management Act, and Covid regulations do not empower the state government to issue directions in relation to non-Covid patients being treated in private hospitals and nursing homes.