New Delhi: As part of strengthening the fight against COVID-19, the government may well invoke Section 2 of Epidemic Disease Act, 1987.
The act was formed for fighting bubonic plague epidemic in the Bombay during British India period.
It was aimed at tackling the spread of “dangerous epidemic diseases’. The act gave special powers to local authorities to put in place measures for disease control.
The law empowers the State to take measure above the ordinary law issuing temporary regulations.
Some historians termed, according to a report in Deccan Herald, the law as ‘draconian’ as it has ‘enormous potential for abuse’.