How India is fighting Coronavirus

with a colonial-era law on

epidemics
The law does not bestow the Centre any power
beyond issuing advisories and coordinating.
Shantanu Nandan Sharma

The Epidemic Disease Act was enacted in 1897 and needs to be

repealed. The Act does not provide any power to the Centre to
intervene in biological emergencies. It has to be substituted by an
Act which takes care of the prevailing and foreseeable public health
needs, including emergencies such as BT (bioterrorism) attack and
use of biological weapons by an adversary, cross border issues and
international spread of diseases”
— Management of Biological Disaster Guideline, GoI, 2008

Behind the urgency to detect and quarantine suspected Covid-19

patients and the clarion call for social distancing lies a stark reality:
in terms of enforcing laws to contain Covid-19, the Centre can do
little on the ground.

The legal inadequacy to tackle disease outbreaks was known for

long, baby steps were taken, but at the end of the day, the country
was not ready when it encountered another pandemic — arguably
the severest since the 1918 influenza pandemic that killed around
seven million people in the country.

The main legal weapon the government possess today is the

Epidemic Disease Act of 1897, a hurriedly drafted short legislation to
stonewall the bubonic plague that devastated life in Bombay in
1896, forcing people to migrate out of the city. No wonder, Cabinet
Secretary Rajiv Gauba last week advised states to invoke Section 2
of the Act so that all advisories the Union health ministry was
issuing could be enforced on the ground.

After all, health is a state subject. Union government’s role could, at

best, be advisory and coordinating in nature, since Section 2 of the
Act only empowers a state to inspect people and segregate
suspected patients. The only power the Centre derives from the
British Raj-era law is on “inspection of any ship or vessel leaving or
arriving at any port” that comes under its jurisdiction. The Act does
not even mention airports. It is understandable — there were no
aeroplanes 123 years ago.
However, when the Centre drafted the 156-page Management of
Biological Disaster Guideline in 2008 — followed in letter and spirit
even today — the realisation came that the Epidemic Disease Act
was inadequate to deal with bioterrorism and international spread of
diseases.

After all, the law does not bestow the Centre any power beyond
issuing advisories and coordinating. It cannot even regulate the
transfer of biological samples — imagine a coronavirus sample
getting stolen while being taken to a laboratory.

During the first term of the UPA government, a public health

emergencies bill was drafted. But the bill went into cold storage
after states called it an infringement upon their powers.

Later, during the Modi government’s first term, a similar draft was
more sincerely followed up, with the health & family welfare ministry
naming it Public Health (Prevention, Control and Management of
Epidemics, Bio-terrorism and Disasters) Bill 2017, proposing to
repeal the epidemic law of 1897.

The draft bill explains in clearer terms the quarantining of suspects

and isolation of the infected, in addition to empowering the Centre
to direct states and district or local bodies as well as usurping
powers bestowed to states under Section 3 if it is found to be
“expedient and in public interests” to do so.

In addition, the proposed law also embedded a provision marking

that anyone intentionally violating the law could end up paying a fine
of up to `1 lakh and face imprisonment of up to two years.

This provision could have been useful now given the rising instances
of Covid-19 suspects skipping quarantine.

Under current laws, police can charge someone under IPC’s Section
269 for negligent act and Section 270 for malignant act for
spreading an infectious disease which is dangerous to life.

Former Union health secretary Lov Verma concedes that there is a

need to strengthen India’s legal framework but laws alone are
insufficient. “India still has a plethora of laws to take on such an
emergency. There are enough guidelines too. The problem arises
mainly because of coordination and implementation issues,” he
says, adding that silo mentality in the government often poses a
challenge.

In the last fortnight, during which the Centre intensified its efforts to
contain the pandemic, its coordination with states has largely been
satisfactory.

Also, no inter-ministerial tussles have come to the fore. In fact, the

home ministry, which usually takes the lead during crises such as
earthquakes, floods and cyclones, has taken a backseat, allowing
the health ministry to coordinate with states as mandated by the
Disaster Management Act of 2005.

On March 11, Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla, who chairs
the national executive committee to coordinate during crises,
invoked certain provisions of the National Disaster Management Act
to delegate coordinating powers to the union health secretary to
facilitate antiCovid preparations and interventions.

The government indeed preempted a scenario like this, says Kamal

Kishore, a member of National Disaster Management Authority
(NDMA), which comes under the home ministry. “We thought about
a possible biological disaster and did a lot of peacetime work,
including drafting the National Disaster Management Plan, 2019.
That, along with the guidelines on biological disaster (2008), are
coming handy now,” he told ET Magazine.

True, the NDMA, along with the National Disaster Response Force
(NDRF), did India’s first full-scale biological management
emergency mock drill at Patna airport in the summer of 2018.

The participants had enacted an Ebola outbreak scenario,

vindicating what Kishore says -- an inkling about a biological
disaster and the need to be prepared. But, according to an official
who took part in the 2018 exercise, that mock drill was never
followed up, nor did its outcomes find any place in subsequent
government guidelines or laws.