The Delhi High Court has directed the Centre and city government to set up a joint panel to monitor the free-treatment facilities for the poor in the Capital's 400 private hospitals and nursing homes which have been allotted land free of cost and at concessional rates on this condition.

A bench comprising Justice Anil Dev Singh and Justice R C Jain said the Centre and Delhi government have failed to set up a monitoring body in this regard. The private hospitals were allotted land worth crore of rupees at prime locations on the condition that they provide free treatment to 25 per cent of poor in-patients and 40 per cent of out-patients. The court directed the hospitals to furnish complete details on how many poor patients have been treated since they started functioning as it formed part of the land lease deed.

Its breach would amount to not fulfilling the contract and also earning "huge profit", the Bench observed, while stating further that the government should recover money from the hospitals and create a pool of funds to help the poor patients incase hospitals had earned profit by not fulfilling the condition.

Directing the Centre and Delhi government to comply with these directions within three months, the court said the report should be filed by March 3, 2003, the next hearing of the public interest litigation (PIL), which alleged all the private hospital and nursing homes were not providing any treatment to poor patients in breach of the land lease condition.