The Supreme Court (SC), while dealing with a writ of mandamus to direct the Department of Health (DoH) to determine a uniform rate of fees chargeable from patients availing services from the clinical establishments operating in the country, has held that, the Central Government cannot shirk away from its responsibility by merely taking the ground that the communication sent by them have not been responded back by their State’s/Union Territory’s counterparts. The SC further directed the DoH to come up with a mechanism till the next date or otherwise, it will consider adopting rates prescribed for Central Government Health Services to all clinical establishments operating in India, as an interim measure.
