Hours after it was reported that the Ashoka Hotel in the national capital will be equipped with a COVID19 facility for the Delhi High Court’s justices, judicial staff and their families, the court has denied making any demand for a ‘5-star COVID facility’.

The Delhi High Court clarified that all it wanted was hospitalisation for the staff and the families in the event of contracting the coronavirus infection.

“All that we wanted was in case they need hospitalisation, that facility should be given. It has translated into this order… What is the projection? That… it is to benefit ourselves or that you have done to appease us?”

Also Read: Delhi reports 20,201 COVID19 positive cases, 380 deaths in the last 24 hours

In an order issued by the Chanakyapuri Sub Divisional Magistrate (SDM) Geeta Grover, New Delhi’s Primus Hospital had been tasked with running the COVID19 facility at the luxury hotel.

“Can we as an institution say that you create a facility for us… such and such beds for us. Would it not be patently discriminatory? Media is not wrong… order is wrong,” the Court said in its clarification.

Also Read: Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh report over 5 fold jump in daily COVID19 cases compared to their last year’s high

Ashoka Hotel, where this COVID care facility is coming up, is owned by the India Tourism Development Corporation Limited, a Government of India undertaking.

On April 22, when hearing issue of hospital beds, Justice Vipin Sanghi had remarked: “It is a four-fold increase (in cases). People are not getting beds. Forget about the ordinary man on the road. Even if I were to ask for a bed, I would not get it easily.”

Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports state that neither Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal nor Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia were aware of the Chanakyapuri SDM’s order.

It is reported that Sisodia has immediately called for an examination as to how such an order was passed.