HC rejects petition for declaring ‘Swasthya Sathi’ unconstitutional

Kolkata: Rejecting a petition that sought to declare the state government’s ‘Swasthya Sathi’ scheme unconstitutional, the Calcutta High Court on Thursday observed that courts cannot interfere in a state’s policymaking.

The bench of Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya was hearing a PIL filed by an organisation headed by one Dr Kunal Saha.

Saha, who appeared in person, argued that the scheme violated Article 14 of the Constitution on the ground that it is arbitrary.

Saha said that the state is restricting the benefits of the scheme on the basis of the size of a family. He submitted that some residents can get a maximum Rs 50,000 cap of insurance protection under the scheme whereas for a small family, the government will pay Rs 5 lakh.

“There cannot be unequal protection of law…. Depending on the size of the family you cannot discriminate in extending the benefits… It is arbitrary,” he submitted.

The CJ said that courts cannot compel the government to take policy decisions. Referring to ‘Swasthya Sathi’ he said these are citizen-friendly schemes and that any relief if needed must be

sought from legislators.

The court observed: “We are unable to decide on what ground the petitioner terms the scheme as unconstitutional or violative of Article 14 of the constitution of India… What we can decipher is that the scheme should be implemented regardless of the size of the family etc.

The court cannot compel the governments to formulate a scheme in a particular manner. These are all policy decisions taken by the government bearing in mind the needs of the citizens of the state.

Therefore, we find no grounds to issue the nature of relief sought for in this writ petition”. The petition was dismissed by the court.