Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic: Ban on passenger travel from EU, UK challenged in Delhi High Court

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday (March 20) issued notices to ministries of Health and Home Affairs and Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on a plea challenging the Centre's circular prohibiting travel of passengers from European Union, UK and Turkey from March 18 onwards to contain the spread of coronavirus pandemic.

Issuing the notice, a bench of Justices J R Midha and I S Mehta directed the authorities concerned to put submit their stand on the plea, which was filed by the father of an Indian student stranded in Scotland. 

The student was reportedly unable to return to the country due to the travel ban, which also includes member nations of European Free Trade Association.

The petition, which seeks quashing of the March 16 circular imposing the travel ban, was mentioned before a bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and I S Mehta earlier in the day for urgent hearing.

The bench headed by Justice Mridul, however, declined to hear the matter as his daughter was stranded in the United Kingdom (UK) in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak and directed that it be listed before another bench.

Justice Mridul also asked the central government to consider evacuating Indian citizens stranded in other COVID-19 affected nations as was done in China, but no orders to this effect were passed.

When the matter came up for hearing before the bench headed by Justice Midha, central government standing counsel Amit Mahajan, appearing for the ministries, urged the court to implead the Ministry of Home Affairs as the travel advisory/ban was issued by the Bureau of Immigration which comes under the ministry. Subsequently, the court made the MHA a party in the case.

Notably, the number of people who have died as a result of the coronavirus pandemic now exceeds 10,000, according to an AFP tally based on official data today. 

In total, 10,080 deaths have been reported, most of them in Europe (4,932) and Asia (3,431). Italy is the worst affected country with 3,405 fatalities, followed by China with 3,248, the initial epicentre of the outbreak, and Iran with 1,433.