On Tuesday, the Delhi High Court allowed climate and education activist Sonam Wangchuk to be transferred from the Safdarjung Hospital to Medanta Hospital, thus putting an end to the legal battle that lasted several days between his family members and the administration. A Bench headed by Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia passed the order after going through the reports of the doctors who were taking care of him and listening to their opinion.
The Bench observed that there was an agreement among the doctors about his continuous and constant monitoring due to his fasting since long, and shifting him to another hospital of his choice will help fulfill his need as well as ensure the protection of his basic rights.
The court ordered that all his reports.
The case came to be heard before the High Court after an appeal had been filed by the wife of Wangchuk, Dr. Gitanjali Angmo, against a decision made by a single-judge bench where permission for transferring Wangchuk out of Safdarjung Hospital had been denied.
According to Angmo's petition, Wangchuk had effectively been confined within the government hospital against his own will, and he was being detained there by the Delhi Police solely in order to prevent him from participating in the ongoing protest at Jantar Mantar.
Wangchuk has been conducting an indefinite hunger strike since late June in support of the protest organized by the recently founded Cockroach Janata Party (CJP).
This protest has become a hot issue lately due to the demands of the party to dismiss the Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan as a result of the NEET-UG paper leak.
On July 18, the Delhi Police had taken Wangchuk from the site of the protest under the pretense that his state of health was deteriorating due to the prolonged hunger strike, and admitted Wangchuk to Safdarjung Hospital.
It should be noted that prior to this event, a certain direction had been issued on July.
As far as the events prior to the order of Tuesday go, the High Court adopted a systematic approach to the matter. First of all, on the previous day, it instructed Safdarjung Hospital, AIIMS, as well as the doctors taking care of Wangchuk personally, to provide medical reports, expert opinions, and pathology reports – even including those made by a private laboratory – in order to consider the request for shifting him to a private hospital. Moreover, it asked Angmo to place the medical reports that she was using on the records and instructed all treating doctors to appear in the courtroom to give answers to the questions put to them by the Bench.
Having studied the materials and having interacted with the doctors, the judges saw that although the doctors were not experts themselves, they reached the conclusion that it was necessary to constantly monitor Wangchuk's health status. It became the reason why the court gave its permission for the transfer to Medanta.
According to the Centre's position articulated by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta representing the Union Government, there was nothing that stood in the way of Wangchuk being shifted to the Medanta Hospital except that he should not be allowed to go against the medical opinion after being admitted to that facility.
It is to be understood from the observations made by the Solicitor General that the people around Wangchuk seemed very eager to get him out of the hospital irrespective of his health conditions as it appeared to the government that the activist may again start his hunger strike at the site of protest soon after his discharge from the hospital.
The bench accepted the stand taken by the Centre and further directed that the doctors from Medanta Hospital shall take care of Wangchuk in accordance with the standard procedure while advising him to take medical opinion seriously.
The Delhi Police and Safdarjung Hospital were represented by ASG Chetan Mehta and central government standing counsel Ashish Dixit.
As per the instructions provided, Gitanjali Angmo thanked the Delhi High Court along with the entire legal team that has been representing the family in the case.
On social media platform X, she expressed her thanks to the Delhi High Court for its intervention, which was reflective of the family's sense of relief after days of legal tussle over the custody and health care of Wangchuk.
Photo: @@CJP_for_India/X
The legal team for Wangchuk comprised advocates Bahuli Sharma, Susan Maria Mathew, Ridhi Arora, Suryaansh Kishan Razdan, and Yoshit Jain, all of whom have been pleading that the choice of hospital and doctor is a question of personal liberty and dignity in light of the dangers that come with an extended hunger strike.
This is by no means the first time that Wangchuk has become a focus of concern for the Delhi High Court because of his activism. He has staged a number of well-publicized protests on issues relating to the constitutional status of Ladakh, such as when he led a protest march from Leh to Delhi in order to seek the region's incorporation in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.
