Please smell the coffee. If we had to do it, we would have done so 15 days ago. But we want you to smell the coffee and realise what is happening in the country and make the necessary amendments.” said Justice DY Chandrachud
The Supreme Court on Monday grilled the Centre and posed some tough questions on the rationale of the dual pricing and procurement of the vaccine policy laid down by the Central Government.
A Bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, L Nageswara Rao and Ravindra Bhat while hearing the suo-moto case on COVID-19 management called for a uniform pricing policy to be adopted for vaccines across the nation.
Justice Chandrachud to SG Tushar Mehta:
"Please smell the coffee"
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“Centre says it gets a low price since it buys in bulk. If this is the rationale, then why do states have to pay a higher price? There needs to be one price for vaccines across the nation. The pandemic has evolved in the last two months,” Justice Chandrachud observed, according to Bar&Bench
The Court also raised questions on the digital divide people in rural areas are facing while registering for the vaccine.
“What about the digital divide? For rural areas, you have said villagers can register on CoWin app through NGOs. Our law clerks and secretaries have tried to register on CoWin app, so we know how it works.” the court asked
Confirming two statements made by Union Health Minister Dr Harshvardhan and I&B Minister Prakash Javdekar, the Centre told the Supreme Court that the government expects to vaccinate the entire population by the end of 2021.
SC Questions Vaccine Procurement, State Vs State
The Supreme Court also grilled the Centre on the eventual state vs state competition when it comes to procurement of vaccines and the dual pricing policy
“The only thing we want to address is the dual pricing policy. You are asking the States to pick up and compete with each other”, Justice S Ravindra Bhat
The Solicitor General replied that it is factually wrong to say that States are competing with each other for getting vaccines.
Justice Chandrachud replied by talking about a ‘spectacle’ where different municipal corporations and states are floating global tenders to meet their vaccine demand.
“We have some concerns. Now we have a spectacle, where different municipal corporations, different states are issuing global tenders. We want to know, is this the policy of the Government of India that every Municipal corporation, every state is left to their own to get the vaccines. Look at the capacity of BMC (Mumbai municipal corporation), it might have a budget comparable with some of our states. Does the Government of India contemplate that for the procurement for foreign vaccines, that there will be individual states or corporations submitting bids or are you going to be a nodal agency for the bids?” he said.
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Solicitor General Mehta said that this question of global procurement might be “academic” as companies such as Pfizer, Moderna etc., have a policy of dealing with only the national governments.
“For entire population above 45, centre is procuring (vaccines) but for 18-44 there is bifurcation of procurement – 50 per cent available to states by manufacturers and price is fixed by the centre, and rest to be given to private hospitals. What is the (actual) basis for this?” the court asked.
“Your rationale was high mortality in 45+ group (but) in the second wave this group is not seriously affected… it is 18-44. If purpose is to procure vaccines, why should the centre procure only for over 45?” questioned the apex court.
The Union Health Ministry data on Sunday in a press release said that nearly 12 crore doses will be available in June 2021, thus ramping up the pace of vaccinations.
India recorded 10,18,076 vaccinations in the last 24 hours.
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