The Gauhati High Court observed that the SOP issued by the Mizoram government restricting the unvaccinated persons from earning their livelihood as “arbitrary”.
The High Court said, the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), issued by the state government, is not in consonance with the provisions of Article 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution.
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A division bench of the Aizwal bench of Gauhati HC comprising Justice Michael Zothankhum and Justice Nelson Sailo made the observance on the Mizoram government’s SOP on Friday.
“The said impugned clauses are interfered with, to the extent that the allowances available and given to vaccinated persons shall also be made equally applicable to unvaccinated persons,” the Gauhati High Court order said.
“The state are accordingly directed to issue a corrigendum of the June 29 SOP at the earliest incorporating the directions,” it added.
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All people in Mizoram are to be vaccinated or else they would not be allowed to leave their houses to procure or obtain essential items, goods or earn their livelihood by working in shops, stores, driving public, commercial transport vehicles, etc., the SOP said.
The SOP was issued by the state chief secretary.
Hearing a petition against the SOP, the Gauhati High Court said: “The restriction placed upon un-vaccinated persons only due to non-vaccination is unreasonable and arbitrary.”
July 14 has been fixed as the next date of hearing in the case.
A total of 243 people, including 59 children, tested positive for Covid19 in Mizoram, taking the state’s tally to 21,246, a health official said on Sunday.
A total of 42 new Covid19 cases were confirmed in the RT-PCR laboratory at Zoram Medical College (ZMC) while 24 cases were detected in TrueNat facilities and 177 were detected through Rapid Antigen Test from various districts, the official said.