The Chhattisgarh High Court Tuesday issued notice to the state’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government on botched eye operations in September that left several aged persons blinded in one eye.
The high court, which is based at Bilaspur town, some 100 km from Raipur, issued the notice as it took up a public interest litigation (PIL) on the issue. The court has given a four week time to the government to submit its reply.
The PIL, filed by two layers, had alleged that dozens of poor elderly people had lost eyesight after they were operated upon by government doctors at a health camp in late September last year at Balod area in Durg district.
The state government had too admitted in a written statement in state assembly in Dec that 44 people were blinded at the Balod camp but it refused to admit that anyone died due to the botched eye operation.
The opposition Congress has been lobbying for resignation of Health Minister Amar Agrawal on the issue since Sep 30 when the weeklong eye camp concluded and several locals reported eyesight loss.
