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A PIL was filed by Gursimran Singh Narula, a final year law student, in Supreme Court seeking complete ban on sanitization tunnels being used in the country to disinfect entrants of the public place.
A notice had been issued to the Union of India (respondent) to put a complete ban on such sanitization tunnels by a three judge bench comprising Justice Ashok Bhushan, Justice R Subhash Reddy and Justice MR Shah.
Petitioner in his PIL claimed that the disinfectant tunnels are ineffective and it also has dangerous after effects for human beings as they expose them to ultra violet rays and the same amounts to “non- consensual medical experimentation”.
Referring to WHO & other health organizations advisory which are against the spraying of disinfectants, the petitioner contended that, faulty notions that encourage the use of disinfectants are against the right to healthy life under Article 21.
Apart from WHO, even Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and Directorate General of health services issued an advisory late in April this year, against spraying of disinfectant tunnel on people of COVID-19 management.
The advisory included dangerous effects of disinfectant tunnels such as irritation of eyes, skin, and potentially gastrointestinal and psychological problems. It further stated that such measures may lead to false sense of disinfection and safety and can actually hinder the hand washing and social distancing measures taken by the public at large.
After this advisory issued by Centre, Indian medical institutions namely, Pune based CSIR-NCL and the Mumbai based Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT) issued a joint statement stating that the advisories did not have any scientific basis and upheld the usage of disinfectant tunnel.
Due to this, people are getting false information that they are exposed to self-claimed organic disinfectants, Narula asserts. At many places, local police are using disinfectant tunnels in schools and other public places going against the advisory issues by Center.
Accordingly, he has sought ban on the usage, installation, production and advertisement of disinfection tunnels involving spraying or fumigation of chemical disinfectants for the purpose of disinfecting human beings.
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