Underreporting Of Covid-19 Deaths In Uttar Pradesh: Plea In Allahabad High Court Seeks Death Audits

The matter was listed before a Division Bench of Justices Ritu Raj Awasthi and Dinesh Kumar Singh at Lucknow, which has relegated the matter to the Chief Justice's Bench at Allahabad that is dealing with Covid related PILs.

The Petitioner, Ashma Izzat, an Advocate by profession, has alleged that deaths are severally under-counted in the state. In this regard it is submitted,

"The photos of Baikunth Dham, Lucknow on 15^th April 2021 had particularly shocked the nation showing a huge pile up of dead bodies being cremated and even a greater number of dead bodies waiting to be cremated. A perusal of the newspaper would exemplify the fact that the number of dead bodies were much more than the deaths recorded in the official records. The official figure was only 13 deaths on April 15, 2021 whereas the news in various newspaper estimating deaths to be more than 10 times of the official figures."

The Petitioner has therefore urged the High Court to pass direction for 'death audit' of Covid-19 fatalities since March 2020 till date.

In this regard, it has cited UP Government's notification for establishing a 'Policy of Death Audit for Covid-19 in the state' dated April 21, 2020 and July 9, 2020.

The notifications provide that each hospital shall be liable to provide information about each death taking place in their hospital.

It is the Petitioner's case that the hospitals have failed to accurately count the number of deaths.

The Petitioner has also urged that, directions be issued to include Covid-19 deaths taking place at Covid Isolation Homes, in transit, homes of Covid-19 patients etc.

A further prayer is made to direct the Respondents to provide information as to whether deaths related illness arising out of Covid-19 like Black Fungus, yellow fungus etc. are counted as Covid-19 related deaths or not.

The suo moto matter is likely to be taken up on July 8.

Case Title: Ashma Izzat v. State of UP

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