Delhi High Court Seeks Government Stand Over Cautious AC Use To Prevent Virus Spread

In this pandemic situation, it has been seen that a lot of people are taking a lot of security measures before using AC in their house respectively. Now on that Delhi High Court sought response of the Centre and the AAP government in New Delhi on a plea that no centrally air-conditioned building, including courts, be used without taking precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19. A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice C Hari Shankar issued notice to the Centre, the Delhi government and the Registrar of the High Court seeking their stand on the application moved by a lawyer — KC Mittal. Mr Mittal, also the head of the Bar Council of Delhi, has contended in his plea that “the cough, sneeze or tear dispersal of an infected person would be in the aerosol form” and the “same can be picked, ingested and circulated by the central air-conditioning units”, like the ones installed in the high court.

He has further contended that while droplet infection can be dealt with by sterilization, once aerosol infection enters the air ducts of the central air-conditioning system, it could potentially infect dozens if not hundreds of persons present in a building. Central government standing counsel Ajay Digpaul, who appeared for the Central Public Works Department, said it has issued guidelines on April 22 with regard to cleaning and maintenance of AC units and added that the same would be placed before the court. Delhi government additional standing counsel Sanjoy Ghose and advocate Naman, appearing for the Public Works Department, said it would file a response before the next date of hearing. The bench asked the Registrar General of the High Court to look into the guidelines issued by CPWD and listed the matter for further hearing on May 1. This was given under the plea of 2015 which was on the rising all population in the capital.