Kolkata, Jan 30 The Calcutta High Court on Thursday dismissed a public interest litigation filed against Swasthya Sathi, West Bengal's own health insurance scheme.
In the petition, it was alleged that the said scheme was floated just with a political motive and in reality, the majority of the common people do not benefit from it. The petitioner also alleged that while often private hospitals refuse to accept the Swasthya Sathi cards, treatment of certain diseases is not covered under the said scheme.
The matter came up for hearing on Thursday before the division bench of Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam and Justice Hirnamay Bhattacharya and it rejected the petition on the grounds that the court cannot interfere with a scheme floated by the state government for public interest.
It also observed that since the scheme was floated on the basis of certain policies of the state, it is more the reason that the court cannot interfere in the matter.
The division bench also questioned what the petitioner would have done had not the scheme existed at all. It also advised the petitioners to speak to elected public representatives like MPs and MLAs on the complaints about the scheme, if necessary.
Swasthya Sathi scheme was introduced in 2016 after the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress regime in West Bengal was elected for the second term. Under the scheme, each family in the state is entitled to health insurance coverage of up to Rs 5,00,000 a year.
However, the opposition BJP has frequently complained that a similar Central scheme, named Ayushman Bharat, is deliberately not being allowed by the state government to be operational in West Bengal.
However, the Trinamool had always been claiming that Swasthya Sathi has an edge over Ayushman Bharat, considering that there are no pre-conditions for availing the state’s own health insurance scheme.
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