Abstract
COVID-19 has uncovered cracks in the Indian legal system and the public healthcare system. The Government of India, on March 24, 2020, imposed a lockdown across the entire country to contain the outbreak of the virus. Interestingly, this lockdown was imposed by invoking not only Section 2 of the Epidemic Diseases Act of 1897 but also the Disaster Management Act of 2005 to handle the pandemic. In the present chapter, it is argued that the Indian legal system has proved insufficient to handle the situation created by the pandemic and totally ignores the right to health of citizens. A pandemic like this not only affects the health of people but also leaves the economy in shambles. The sudden lockdown of the nation took the unorganized sector by surprise. Thousands of migrant workers and domestic workers were left to the mercy of their employers. In the chapter, we try to argue that an appropriate health emergency law could accommodate many demands which emerge during a pandemic.
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Kamthan, M. (2023). The Need for Health Emergency Law in India. In: Singh, A. (eds) International Handbook of Disaster Research. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8800-3_11-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8800-3_11-1
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