Delhi High Court seeks Safdarjung Hospital health report on Sonam Wangchuk; to rule on transfer plea Tuesday

The Delhi High Court on Monday asked Safdarjung Hospital to file pathological reports of fasting activist Sonam Wangchuk. A division bench will decide Tuesday on Gitanjali Angmo's plea to transfer her husband to a private facility

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Monday asked the Safdarjung Hospital here to file Sonam Wangchuk’s pathological reports and health bulletins and said that it would take a call on Tuesday on the plea by the fasting activist’s wife Gitanjali Angmo to shift him to a private facility.

The bench was hearing an appeal by Angmo against a Monday order of the high court refusing to interfere with his ongoing treatment at the central government hospital.

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“The report should include today’s sample analysis”, said the bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia

It said it would take a call on Tuesday on whether to allow Angmo’s plea to shift Wangchuk to a private facility.

Angmo has challenged a single judge’s Sunday order which refused to interfere with the activist’s ongoing treatment at Safdarjung Hospital.

The bench asked the In-charge director of AIIMS as well as the AIIMS emergency doctor treating Wangchuk to be present at the hearing, and also sought the presence of the doctor who was treating him earlier.

It also asked Angmo to file the reports of Wangchuk’s blood analysis, which were stated to have been undertaken at her behest at a private lab.

The bench, earlier, agreed to hear the matter on an urgent basis after Angmo’s senior counsel mentioned it.

In her appeal, Angmo contended that the single judge’s Sunday order illegally confines Wangchuk to Safdarjung Hospital without any arrest and effectively directs that neither the activist nor his wife has decisive authority in determining his medical treatment.

The appeal said the order does not address “informed consent” or one’s right to accept or reject any medical treatment.

In a special Sunday hearing, Justice Mini Pushkarna had refused to interfere with Wangchuk’s treatment at Safdarjung Hospital here, stating that the government’s removal of the fasting activist from Jantar Mantar to a government hospital cannot be called arbitrary.

The single judge had opined that no interim order to immediately transfer the activist was required at this stage.

The observation came on a petition filed by Angmo seeking permission to shift him to a private facility.

The order said Safdarjung doctors were closely monitoring the activist, and it could not be said that any force was being used against him in violation of his bodily integrity.

Taking note of the high court’s July 16 order directing the authorities to monitor Wangchuk’s health and medically intervene if necessary, Justice Pushkarna observed that since Wangchuk did not check himself into any hospital facility, the government was “within its right” to take him to Safdarjung in view of his medical condition.

“It is to be noted that the ultimate decision with regard to the medical condition of Mr Wangchuk would be monitored by the medical team attending him, which shall take a decision as per the medical protocol,” the single judge had added.

Angmo had sought an urgent hearing on her petition on Sunday too, a day after Delhi Police whisked Wangchuk away from the protest site at Jantar Mantar and forcibly shifted him to Safdarjung Hospital on the 21st day of his hunger strike on Saturday.

Wangchuk has been on a hunger strike since June 28 over alleged irregularities in competitive examinations and the deaths of several students linked to the NEET paper cancellation earlier.