NEW DELHI, June 3 : The Supreme Court, in its order passed recently, criticized Liberalized Vaccination Policy of vaccination by private hospitals.

"The present system of allowing only digital registration and booking of appointment on CoWIN, coupled with the current scarcity of vaccines, will ultimately ensure that initially all vaccines, whether free or paid, are first availed by the economically privileged sections of the society.", the bench headed by Justice DY Chandrachud said in the order.

The Court, however, clarified that it is not opposed to the involvement of private hospitals in the vaccination drive.  The bench, also comprising Justices L. Nageswara Rao and S. Ravindra Bhat, noted that, being for-profit entities, the private hospitals may sell the vaccine doses procured at a higher price, for lucrative deals directly to private corporations. The court, therefore, directed the Government to respond to the following issues:

The manner in which Central Government will monitor the disbursal of vaccines to private hospitals, specifically those who have hospital chains pan India. Further, whether (i) private hospitals are liable to disburse vaccines pro rata the population of States/UTs; an (ii) the mechanism to determine if private players are genuinely administering the lifted quota in that State/UT alone. The UoI shall place on record any written policy in relation to this.

Whether the Central Government conducted a "means-test" of the demographic of a State/UT to assert that 50% of the population in the 18-44 age group would be able to afford the vaccine. If not, the rationale for private hospitals being provided an equal quota for procurement as the State/UT Governments. The manner in which the Centre and States/UTs shall ensure an equitable distribution of vaccines across sections of the society, and how this factors into the rationale of equal apportionment between State/UT Governments and private hospitals.