“Covid is long gone. Vaccination is long over,” the government counsel told the apex court on Monday in response to the plea filed by Rachana Gangu from Hyderabad and Venugopalan Govindan from Tamil Nadu, who lost their daughters, aged 19 and 20, after getting the shot.
The counsel of the parents, however, said “tens of thousands of people have died, including children”. He said that the government “lied to the people of India saying that it was absolutely safe”. “All the parents all across the country gave the information filed in this case. They said… this is 110% safe. You can take it,” he said.
Hearing both sides, the judges posted the case for further hearing.
The government counsel reiterated that the government “only gave it free but it was a voluntary vaccination programme”, and added that “220 billion” vaccinations have been done in the country. She also mentioned, while seeking dismissal of the case, that the judges had earlier affirmed the vaccination programme in one of the cases.
Earlier, in an affidavit filed in the top court in response to the parents’ petition, the government had said that although it urged everyone to take the Covid-19 vaccine jab, it never forced anyone to get “vaccinated against their wishes”. It also said that the Covid-19 vaccination guidelines issued by the Union health ministry did not envisage forcible vaccination without obtaining the consent of an individual.The parents of the two young women who died allegedly after they took Covid-19 vaccine have filed a rejoinder in the Supreme Court, refuting the government’s affidavit and alleging that the government had forced people to take Covid-19 vaccines through direct and indirect actions.They have alleged that Covid-19 was made out to look like an unprecedented challenge to mankind, and vaccines were touted as the only way out of it by the government and the experts backed by the government without necessary evidence.
Due to this “mass deception” by the government and the vaccine manufacturers and all those pushing the vaccine, no training was done of doctors in the country to deal with adverse events, alleged the petitioners.
“No recording of these adverse events was done anywhere in the country because all healthcare institutions were told that the vaccine did not have any significant side events,” the petitioners said in the rejoinder. “The petitioners were also never given any information about serious adverse events of Covid vaccine from the vaccinator.”
Besides seeking compensation, the parents in their writ petition filed in 2022, sought appointment of an expert medical board independent of the government to forthwith inquire into and investigate into the deaths of their daughters, and to share the report of the investigation with them. They also appealed the court to issue a direction to the said expert medical board to prepare a protocol for early detection and timely treatment for adverse event following immunisation (AEFI) due to Covid-19 vaccine.
In their rejoinder, they alleged that the government failed to heed any early warning signals within the country about potential adverse events.
They said the government affidavit was misleading as it failed to mention that the package inserts available at the time of vaccination of their daughters did not mention any information about thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS).
According to the parents, the government deliberately did not publicise the adverse effect of TTS and downplayed the importance of AEFI by suggesting only mild side-effects could occur.
