BIG WIN For Sonam Wangchuk As Delhi HC Orders Activist's Immediate Transfer To Medanta Hospital

New Delhi: In a big relief for Sonam Wangchuk, The Delhi High Court on Tuesday (July 21) ordered the immediate transfer of the activist to Medanta Hospital. The order was issued while hearing a plea by activist Wangchuk's wife, Getanjali Angmo, to shift him to a private hospital from Safdarjung Hospital. The private hospital has also been directed to form a panel of doctors for conducting Wangchuk's treatment. The High Court also ordered that the director of Medanta should form a team of doctors which will oversee him and administer medication in terms of accepted norms of protocol to which he shall abide Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the government, said that the Centre has no objection to shifting the activist to Medanta Hospital. However,

Mehta argued that Wangchuk should remain under continuous medical supervision and not be discharged except on the advice of Medanta’s doctors. The bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia on Monday had said that Wangchuk's report should include samples from July 20. Yesterday, the bench had also 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 had 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.Earlier, the bench had agreed to hear the matter on an urgent basis. 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.

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The single judge had opined that no interim order to immediately transfer the activist was required at this stage.Wangchuk, who was on hunger strike in support of the protest launched by the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), an online satirical movement demanding education reforms, was removed from the protest site at Delhi's Jantar Mantar on Saturday (July 18). He started his hunger strike on June 28. Notably, the CJP's protest is centred around the demand for Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation over alleged irregularities in the NEET examination after the medical entrance test was cancelled in early May following a paper leak.