India is a country with a very high population of which most of them would find it difficult to undergo testing for the COVID-19 Novel Corona Virus at a cost of Rs. 4500, very difficult! This capping for the amount of Rs. 4500 at private labs was brought out by a directive from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), on March 17th! However, a PIL was filed by advocate Shashank Deo Sudhi at the Supreme Court, sought the Court to direct the Centre and relevant authorities to make the testing free of cost as not all the citizens would be able to avail of this costly test and the increasing mortality rate due to the Virus has been alarming.

A Bench of Justices having Ashok Bhushan and Ravindra S Bhat, heard the PIL today and taking into consideration the need for increased testing in the wake of the severity of the Pandemic, directed the Central Government to issue orders to approved laboratories to conduct COVID-19 tests, free of cost. The Court also ordered that Private labs should not charge heavily for the tests and that the Government should reimburse these charges. All COVID-19 tests should only be undertaken at laboratories accredited by the National Accredition Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) and the ICMR. The plea also requested for increasing the testing centres across the country to ramp up the number of tests that can be done in a single day!