Petition in Supreme Court seeks measures to combat heat wave

Source – thehindu.com

The Supreme Court has asked a PIL petitioner to submit a representation to the government to reschedule office hours and provide drinking water and medical facilities to the public and in educational institutions to beat the heat wave sweeping across the country.

A Bench, led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, said that it was the Supreme Court’s “considered opinion” that advocate Sravan Kumar, who moved the PIL in his personal capacity, should “submit a representation to the competent authority, which shall contain suggestions” to combat the heat wave.

Calling the rising temperatures a “silent killer”, Mr. Kumar argued in the court that it was the state’s duty to protect the citizen’s Right to Life guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution from the adverse affect of the heat wave.

The petition said that a heat wave should be considered on a par with other disasters as per Article 14 of the Constitution and that it was necessary to implement the Heat Wave Action Plan-2016 prepared by National Disaster Management Authority.

Mr. Kumar laid before the court the rising statistics of deaths extracted from the Heat Wave Action Plan-2016, which shows that there were 1,247 deaths in 2012, 1,677 in 2014 and 2,422 in 2015 due to heat waves.

“Higher daily peak temperatures and longer, more intense heat waves are becomingly increasingly frequent globally due to climate change. India, too, is feeling the impact of climate change in terms of increased instances of heat waves which are more intense in nature with each passing year, and have a devastating impact on human health thereby increasing the number of heatwave casualties,” the petition said.

The petition said many States are affected during the heat wave season, such as Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand and Delhi.