“Why is it that vaccinated people are not allowed to travel by the local trains?” the Bombay High Court on Monday, August 2, raised this concern and asked the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra government.
A bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice GS Kulkarni also asked the government: “What was the purpose of taking both doses of the vaccine if citizens were expected to stay inside their homes?”.
Besides, it also urged the state government to work on a comprehensive plan for the same so that the burden on other modes of transport can be reduced.
The bench was hearing a bunch of public interest litigations filed by lawyers and private persons through senior counsel Milind Sathe, advocates Shyam Dewani and Alankar Kirpekar, among others, seeking that lawyers be permitted to travel by local trains and Metro rail to commute to courts and their offices.
Sathe remarked that since physical hearings have now been resumed by the high court and subordinate courts, all lawyers needed to travel by trains.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra Advocate General Ashutosh Kumbhakoni stated that the state disaster management authority was reluctant to permit all lawyers, judicial clerks and court staff to resume local train travel.
Responding to this, the bench said that after taking the vaccine people are not supposed to stay at home, they are supposed to work and earn their livelihood. Courts have begun functioning physically, railways are also cooperating. However, not just for lawyers, but people from other walks of life too should be allowed to travel.
At present, only frontline health workers and government staff are permitted to use local trains, which are considered as the lifeline of Mumbai.
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