The Delhi High Court on October 4 asked the city government to file its response to a plea for quashing a circular that excluded non-Delhi patients from taking free treatment at the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital.

A bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V. Kameswar Rao gave the direction while hearing a public interest litigation filed by a civil rights group, Social Jurist, through advocate Ashok Agarwal. The court listed the matter for October 8. The group requested the court to set aside the circular as it was in violation of constitutional rights, besides being arbitrary and discriminatory.

The petitioner pleaded that the GTB Hospital at Dilshad Garden in Shahdara area has already started refusing treatment to thousands of people of Delhi and outside for not having the voter ID card from the national capital. The Delhi government had reportedly launched a project to reserve 80 per cent of the beds for residents of Delhi and the verification is based on voter ID cards to decongest healthcare centres in east Delhi.