The Centre on Monday denied allegations that people were losing their jobs and rations due to Covid-19 vaccine mandates imposed by various states governments and other authorities, PTI reported.
“Nobody is losing anything,” Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said.
Mehta made the remarks before the Supreme Court, which is hearing a plea seeking the disclosure of data on clinical trials of Covid-19 vaccines, adverse events after immunisation and vaccine mandates.
The plea was filed by Dr Jacob Puliyel, a former member of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, in August.
During Monday’s hearing, Senior Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing on behalf of Puliyel, told the court that the matter of vaccine mandates was “urgent” as people were losing their jobs.
“They are losing their rations,” Bhushan told a bench comprising Justices L Nageswara Rao and BR Gavai. “They are not able to move around freely as a result of these vaccine mandates.”
Bhushan alleged that authorities were restricting the fundamental rights of citizens by imposing these mandates. He told the court that such mandates should only be issued if there was clear evidence that unvaccinated people were a greater danger to others than those who have been vaccinated.
The bench told Bhushan that all instances raised by the petitioner were not possible for the court to decide as there may be numerous situations.
“You are talking about employment, but there are so many other situations, not only pertaining to employment,” the bench told Bhushan, reported Live Law. “People will come complaining about various things that we cannot handle.”
The court also asked the petitioner to approach High Courts for specific cases.
“We will decide your main case and specific cases can be dealt with by the High Courts,” it said.
The court said it would fix a date to take up the matter for final hearing.
In August, Bhushan had told the court that the plea was not an “anti-vaccine petition” and transparency on the matter was needed. He had also argued against making vaccination compulsory for availing benefits or services in the country.
In June, Twitter had flagged a post by Bhushan about vaccines as misleading. “The healthy young have hardly any chance of serious effects or dying due to Covid-19,” Bhushan had claimed in his tweet.
Many social media users at the time had criticised the lawyer for his claims.
Unfazed by the criticism, Bhushan had even posted a long clarification on his “vaccine scepticism” and said that he was “shocked by attempts to censor such contrarian views”.
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