PIL on Jayalalithaa's health sets off medical privacy debate

A public interest litigation (PIL) petition asking the Madras High Court to order a private hospital to provide a detailed report on the health of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Tuesday introduced a new twist to the ongoing mystery about who was actually running the state in her absence and raised questions about how much the privacy of a public person could be breached.

That the PIL was admitted at all, as the relationship between a hospital and a patient is subject to confidentiality, is surprising. Even more surprising was the direction by the court to Tamil Nadu’s Additional Advocate General to “get instructions’ on the CM’s health on the grounds that the people of the state were anxious to know about the CM’s health.

Former CM M G Ramachandran was paralysed but functioned as chief minister of Tamil Nadu for a prolonged period.

Jayalalithaa was admitted to Apollo Hospitals on September 22 for fever and dehydration. The hospital, on Monday, said she continues to improve and must remain hospitalised for some more days because of infection. In the meantime, not only have press releases issued purportedly by the chief minister announced several policy decisions, including naming candidates for local body election (since cancelled), but also the hospital itself has been issuing regular bulletins about the CM’s health and that she was mending fast. At the same time, a British doctor whose speciality is critical care illness and multiple organ failure was flown down from England for consultation. He has since returned.

On Tuesday, social activist ‘Traffic’ Ramaswamy filed a PIL in the Madras High Court, seeking the real status of Jayalalithaa’s health. He also wanted photographs of the meeting she is said to have had with her Cabinet colleagues and officials in the hospital, where she is admitted.  

Holding that Governor C Vidyasagar Rao and Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan had reportedly visited the hospital, the petitioner said they have not given details about her health condition.  

He also submitted that the police had blocked the roads leading to the corporate hospital where Jayalalithaa was undergoing treatment by erecting barricades preventing others from going to the hospital for treatment. That a private citizen was forced to take recourse to the judiciary to find out whether the chief minister was in good health is complicated by the way the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) has been conducting itself. The party has kept vigil at the hospital but at the same time, striving to function in a business-as–usual mode, with MPs under the direction of “Hon’ble Chief Minister Jayalalithaa” marching to the South Block office of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi on Tuesday to demand the setting up of a Cauvery Water Management Board of experts to assess the water needs of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in their dispute over the Cauvery river.

Their memorandum, they said, had been directed by Jayalalithaa from her hospital bed, to protest against the Centre’s stand in the Supreme Court that it cannot create the board and needs the authorisation of Parliament to do so. The Centre in the Supreme Court conceded that this was a mistake. However, not everyone was impressed by the business-as-usual stance of the state government.

In another order, the Madras High Court scrapped the state Election Commission’s (EC) notification for local body polls in the state because it was done ‘in a rush’. The state government issued the notification on instructions from the EC, which typically consults with the state administration before issuing such an order. This again raises the question of Jayalalithaa’s health, for, if she was as badly incapacitated as her rivals allege, she would not have been able to issue the orders.

The court, acting on a petition from DMK, seeking to quash the notification, asked the state Election Commission why the polls were announced on September 25, days after Jayalalithaa was admitted in hospital. The process of receiving nominations commenced the following day itself, without giving breathing time to political parties. The DMK said several rules were bypassed, including inadequate reservation to Scheduled Tribes, followed by necessary rotation of seats in all the posts, as mandated in the Constitution.
 

The party said that under the Constitution, reservation for STs, both in panchayats and municipalities throughout the state is mandatory, while no reservation was made for STs for the post of district panchayat presidents and panchayat union presidents. It alleged that even in Chennai, reservation for STs was not made available.

The Advocate General submitted that the writ was not maintainable on two grounds. The first was that there is bar on hearing the election petition particularly after the issue of the election notification. The other was that the term of local bodies cannot be extended after five years and it is mandatory to conduct the elections before the expiry of current term, he said.

Now, the court has ordered that elections be held before December 30. This is a direct assault of the right of the state government and emasculation of the powers of the state Election Commission.

In the meanwhile, the exact status of Jayalalithaa’s health is not known, even as the hospital has said that she is recovering fast but needs to stay on in medical care to prevent infection. Her greatest ally is the governor, who has said she is ‘recovering’.