Public Interest Litigation in Supreme Court of India concludes.
Final orders were passed on 01 April 2016 on our litigation in the Supreme Court of India pending since 2007.
In its orders, the Supreme Court expressed satisfaction that “the present petition does appear to have served its purpose and led to an improvement in the system that was earlier prevailing” particularly in view of the amendment of the NDPS Act. The court continues to observe that “There may still be certain areas of concern which according to the petitioners need to be addressed by the competent authority but the petitioner shall be free to seek such other redress as may be warranted under the law before the authorities”.
True, it indeed served the purpose to a large extent. The questions raised by the Court at every hearing had spurred Government action. The case was filed in 2007 jointly by Indian Association of Palliative Care (represented by M.R.Rajagopal), Ms Poonam Bagai (cancer survivor, chairman of CanKids and vice-chair of Pallium India) and Dr Ravi Ghooi, the pharmacologist who had gone to High Court of Delhi in the mid-1990s seeking access to morphine for his mother with cancer. There are a few people who deserve the gratitude of every palliative care person in the country and everyone who is going to be benefited by the case – Mr Ashok Chitale, senior lawyer and trustee of Pallium India, his colleague and senior lawyer Mr Niraj Sharma and Ms Tripti Tandon of Lawyers’ Collective who all did all the work on the PIL pro bono. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts, Mr Chitale, Mr Sharma and Ms Tandon.
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