NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday frowned at a PIL which sought a direction to the Union government to permit revaccination of persons, who have been fully vaccinated with Covaxin, with Covishield at their own risk to enable hassle free travel abroad.
Petitioner Kartik Seth argued before a bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and B V Nagarathna that since Covaxin has not got necessary approval from World Health Organisation (WHO), those fully vaccinated with Covishield and wanting go abroad are facing a lot of hassles at the foreign ports.
Alarmed by the ‘revaccination at own risk’ argument, Justice Chandrachud said, “There is an existing SOP for vaccination. We cannot be playing with the lives of people by directing the government to allow fresh inoculation with Covishield even after a person is fully vaccinated through Covaxin.”
“The WHO is seized of the process for approval of Covaxin. Let us wait for some time and see the outcome. We will defer hearing on this PIL,” the bench said and posted it for further hearing in the second week of November.
“If the authorisation from WHO is given to Covaxin, there will be no difficulty. So let us wait,” the bench said. The petitioner said Covishield had given all three phase trial results with relevant documents in December last year and got approval in February this year. He said he has given the list of seven vaccines which have got WHO approval.
The bench smelled a rat and said, “This is the problem in entertaining such PILs. Because we do not want to entertain a PIL filed at the behest of a competitor who is pushing for a direction against Covaxin. That’s the real danger in these matters – a competitor using Article 32 petition to edge out a rival,” the bench said. Seth immediately clarified that the petition was completely in public interest.