The Supreme Court on Monday sought responses from all the States on a plea seeking setting up of a committee to scrutinize and audit the medical bills and expenses overcharged from COVID-19 patients and their families. A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna issued notice to all the States and asked the petitioner Abhinav Thapar to amend his petition and make all the states party to his plea.
Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj, appearing for Centre, pointed out that since health is a state subject, it will be appropriate if the petitioner makes them party in his plea. Advocate Krishna Ballabh Thakur, appearing for Thapar, said he will append the petition accordingly. On October 8, the top court had said that it will devise a mechanism for redressal of grievances concerning overcharging of expenses by hospitals and doctors from COVID-19 patients during the second wave of the pandemic and had sought responses from the Centre. Thapar has said that a lot of difficulties were faced by the patients during the pandemic as many hospitals and doctors overcharged them.
In his plea, the petitioner has said that direction be issued to the Centre to form a committee at the state and district level to scrutinise and audit the medical bills and the expenses over-charged from COVID-19 patients and their families. He also sought direction to the Centre and state governments to direct the hospitals and doctors under their jurisdiction to refund the over-charged amount of such patients or if they have died then it should be paid to their nearest family member.
There is no uniform policy and guidelines till date regarding the refund of exorbitant amount overcharged from patients either at the state level or central level and COVID-19 patients and their families are left at the mercy of private hospitals, which have been exploiting the global pandemic, the plea said. He said that Uttarakhand has received many complaints about overcharging and this fact was also mentioned by the high court in a common order passed on April 20 in a batch of five PILs.
The Union Territory of Chandigarh has received many complaints from COVID-19 patients regarding overcharging by private hospitals despite several measures taken by the government to cap the hospitals for COVID patients, the plea said, adding that similarly, Punjab has also received many complaints from COVID-patients. The plea said that even the Delhi government has also received many complaints regarding overcharging but no effective steps have been taken for the refund of the excess amount charged by the hospitals.
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