–Apex court withdraws order to keep markets open on weekends
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday took back its decision to open markets on the weekend as the number of coronavirus cases continues to rise across the country.
The decision was announced by the apex court during a hearing of the suo motu case regarding measures taken against the virus outbreak.
“Coronavirus does not differentiate between provinces. The federal government needs to take a lead on this and needs to come up with laws regarding this,” said the top court.
Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Gulzar Ahmed called for legislation on the national level to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, adding that nothing would come out of press conferences. “China immediately came up with laws to stem the spread of the virus,” he noted.
He asked that how could a policy be formulated through executive orders as it should be formulated under a law.
The attorney general said that the federal government had taken steps to ensure implementation of standard operating procedures (SOPs) against the coronavirus outbreak. He said that specific laws had been made by provincial governments.
Justice Ijazul Ahsan said that the virus does not differentiate between provinces, adding that people were dying because of it and something should be done.
He said that people should take the coronavirus seriously as 100,000 cases had been reported now.
The National Disaster Management Authority’s (NDMA) counsel said that the testing capacity had been increased to 30,000 tests per day. Upon this, the chief justice said that 30,000 tests were very less for a country with a population of 200 million.
The NDMA counsel also informed the bench that 100 laboratories were set up across the country to conduct coronavirus tests. The chief justice said that the number of laboratories were less as there should be 100 laboratories in Karachi alone.
The court asked authorities to ensure sanitary workers were provided with the needed protective equipment to carry out their daily work.
During the hearing, the bench also asked about the locust attack in different parts of the country.
The NDMA counsel said they were leasing a plane from Turkey for spraying locust-hit areas.
The court directed the federal government to submit a report regarding the locust attack in the country.
The court also asked the federal government to submit the details of the damages caused due to the locusts’ attack and the cost of importing food in case of shortage in the country.
The hearing was then adjourned.
