By IANS,
New Delhi : The Supreme Court Tuesday suspended a Delhi High Court verdict, ordering closure of over 10,000 nursing homes, operating from residential areas in the capital in violation of building bye-laws.
While suspending the high court’s April 25 verdict, a bench of Justice Markandey Katju and Justice Deepak Verma also issued notices to the Delhi government seeking its response within four weeks on a lawsuit by the Delhi Medical Association (DMA) and several nursing homes.
A large number of nursing homes across the capital, operating in violation of building by-laws and land use norms faced the prospects of closure following the high court’s April 25 order.
The high court had ordered closure of large number of illegally-run nursing homes, dismissing a bunch of lawsuits by DMA and various nursing homes.
The lawsuits had challenged a 1992 amendment to the Delhi Nursing Home Rules for registration, which barred registration of nursing homes unless they adhere to land use norms.
The high court had also rejected the petitioners’ request to leave the issue to the central and the Delhi government to consider it in accordance with the amendments to the Master Plan for Delhi-2021 that introduced mixed land use norms.
The high court had ordered immediate closure of those nursing homes, which had been operating without valid registration for years and did not comply with all the requirements not only under the MPD-2021 but also under other statutes as well.
As for nursing homes, which had applied for registration but had not yet been granted permission, the high court had given liberty to the authorities concerned to take action against them as per its judgement.
For nursing homes, which had approached the high court after applying for grant or renewal of their registration, the court had given them six months to shut down their business if they were unable to have themselves registered as per the Delhi Nursing Homes Registration Act, 1953, the rules and the law established in the judgement.
Besides, this category of nursing homes were also asked to secure approval in terms of the land use norms within eight weeks from the date of pronouncement of the judgement if they had not done it so far.