SC rejects plea for fixing accountability of WHO officials over Covid-19

The Supreme Court Thursday refused to entertain a plea seeking direction to fix accountability of WHO officials for their alleged failure in preventing the COVID-19 pandemic in the world.

A bench headed by Justice S K Kaul said that the plea, which had also said that China may be made to pay appropriate compensation to India for the losses incurred due to the pandemic, was not maintainable.

"We do not have the jurisdiction to summon the Government of China," the bench, also comprising Justice Hrishikesh Roy, said.

"How can this court say what the WHO and China should do? This court is not the government," the bench told Raman Kakar, who had filed the petition.

"The petition is not maintainable," the apex court said.

It observed that the petitioner is a doctor and has experience in that field but he is not a lawyer and it is reflected from the prayers made in the plea.

The plea had said that World Health Organisation (WHO) officials, who are allegedly found guilty of causing or exacerbating the "avoidable genocide", should be prosecuted.

It claimed that the WHO had delayed declaring COVID-19 as a "global health emergency" by a month.

"This pandemic is a manifestation of the deep-seated rot that has set in the unsupervised organisation from top to bottom. WHO has betrayed the human race," the plea had alleged.