The unprecedented situation of COVID – 19 pandemics is one of the biggest challenges before the Government of India. The Government in this crisis is duty bound to prevent spread of the pandemic and ensure that the public health is not compromised. Considering the absence of a rational structured legislation, the center decided to invoke the Epidemic Disease Act 1897 and The Disaster Management Act 2005 to handle the pandemic. The central government and state government are duty bound to deal with dangerous epidemic disease under Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 for better prevention of the widespread of dangerous epidemic diseases. The Disaster Management Act, 2005, which plays an eminent role in the COVID-19 pandemic situation, also suffers from some major flaws. Even during the initial stages of pandemic, the central government could have used its powers to increase the preparedness of COVID-19 at the hospitals and could have also enabled the states to use the State Disaster Response Fund for taking necessary precautionary measures for its prevention. The government is in charge of taking measures for providing better facilities and amenities for protecting the citizens from these viruses, providing enough healthcare workers, hospitals, intensive care units etc. it also has the responsibility of providing vaccines to the citizens for preventing the disease from affecting us. Through this research, the researcher also focuses on bringing up practical suggestions that shall be adopted by the government to solve the drawbacks of the existing legislation.

Another area on which government involvement is mandatory is on protecting the right to privacy of citizen provided under Art 21 of the Constitution of India. The pandemic situation has brought to light the cases of privacy infringement of citizens rights through newspapers and other media resources. The right to privacy being a fundamental right shall not be violated even during times of health emergencies; therefore the government has the utmost responsibility to prevent any kind of infringement of privacy right of the individual and the state must take every effort to retain the rights of the citizens with the governing rules of the central government. With this research, the researchers also analysis the reasonability of the various measures taken by the government during this pandemic situation through theoretical analysis to draw a conclusion on the efficiency of the government.

In September 1896, one case of Bubonic Plague was detected in Mamdvi (then in Bombay Presidency) now in Gujarat. Bombay Presidency was one of the densely populated area and rapidly the Plague epidemic had spread throughout the population in Bombay. India under the rule of queen and British Parliament had enacted the Epidemic Disease Act 1897 to prevent the Plague from spreading to the rest of India. This century old blunt Act “The Epidemic Disease Act 1897 “enacted by the British Parliament was the only enactment for the Indian government to rely upon to tackle the COVID 19 Pandemic outbreak which had spread throughout the India. The Act provided the power to invoke and search for suspected plague cases in homes and among passenger and thereafter forcible segregation of affected person, disinfection, evacuation and demolition of infected place.

The Act also confers power to prevent assembly of crowd, public meetings, festivals and suspended pilgrimages. Corresponding to it military powers were used to ensure the proper implementation of the preventive measures. The Act was criticized as one of the most draconian pieces of sanitary legislation ever adopted in colonial India[1]. The Act is purely regulatory in nature and emphasis the power of the government , “when the state government is satisfied that the state or any part thereof is visited by or threatened with an outbreak of any dangerous epidemic disease and if it thinks that the ordinary provisions of the law are insufficient for the purpose , then the state may take , or require or empower any person to take some measures and by public notice prescribe such temporary regulations to be observed by the public , the state government may prescribe regulations for inspection of persons travelling by railway or otherwise and the segregation in hospital , temporary accommodation or otherwise of persons suspected by the inspecting officer of being infected with any such disease “[2]. It also imposes punishment of 6month imprisonment and 1000 rupees fine for disobeying the Act[3]. The punishment for such disobedience shall be same as that in section -188 of Indian Penal Code.

The Act legally protects the implementing officer who acts under the Act[4]. This shortest Act comprising 4 section was one of the frameworks to assist the central government in the COVID 19 pandemic situation.

The Act is not in the line with the contemporary scientific understanding of outbreak prevention and response but only reflects the scientific and legal standards that prevailed at the time when it was framed the Act doesn’t reflect the spread of disease in the modern world. Some of the drawbacks of the Act are as follows:

The Act is not sufficient to deal with the prevention and control of communicable disease in the current situation. So, the inadequacy of the legal frame has to be considered by the Government.

Different states in India had invoked the provisions of Epidemic Disease Act 1897, including Maharashtra, Punjab, Gujarat. Then also the state and central government is struggling to cop up with the Pandemic situation. Even the WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION & UNITED NATIONS were not established at the time of such an enactment. With this COVID 19 pandemic the Government is understood with the difficulties faced by the country to face such a pandemic so accordingly the legislature has to enact a new enactment and the right to health has to be incorporated in Fundamental Rights. Some of the suggestions for a better legislation are as follows:

From the early stages of breakdown of the pandemic, government invoked the powers under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 to increase the preparedness of COVID 19 at the hospitals. It has enabled the states to use funds from the State Disaster Response Fund and also provided a list of penal provisions against the person not abiding the government. Sec 51to 60 of the Disaster Management Act,2005 provided for the offences relating to false claims, obstructions, warnings etc which amounts to an maximum imprisonment for 2 years and fine.

The Disaster Management Act, 2005 has enabled the establishment of institutional framework necessary for preventing and mitigating the adverse effects of disasters and chalks out robust mechanism for the Disaster Management[5]. As per the Act, The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) is established which is headed by the Prime Minister, similarly, State Disaster Management Authorities (SDMAs) is heading by the respective Chief Minister and at the District Level the District Disaster Management Authorities (DDMAs) is heading by the District Collector. These bodies are statutorily bound to provide “a more proactive, holistic and integrated approach of strengthening disaster preparedness, mitigation and emergency response[6].” The executive committee of the NDMA is called the National Executive Committee. It coordinates the response on behalf of the NDMA. It consists of 14 Secretaries of the government of India as well as the chief of the integrated defence staff. To assist the NDMA two other bodies have been created called the National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF). The act also envisages the establishment of National Executive Council, Preparation of National Plan, and Guidelines for minimum Standards of relief[7].

The National Disaster Management Authority under the DM Act is the nodal central body for coordinating disaster management. The 2019 national disaster management plan issues deals exclusively with biological disaster and health emergency, which is the broad legal framework within which the activities under COVID 19 are being carried out by the union and state governments[8]. The chairperson of the authority, declared COVID 19 as a national disaster under Sec 6 and 10 of the Act, to undertake uniform lockdown regulation to implement throughout the country. National Disaster Management Act under the Disaster Management Act lays down policies, plans and guidelines for management of disaster and has formulated 30 guidelines on various disasters including the ‘guidelines of management of biological disaster 2008’. These guidelines include; -

The Pandemic has exposed the country to various dimensions of which we have not travelled so far. The three main aspects namely accountability, transparency and access to the government have become central to the discourse around the state, law and the citizenship which is based on representation and emergencies. The response of the government had load bare the opaque mechanisms of governance in today’s world. it has outlined a peculiar effect of governance in the form of partisan communication between the media and the government. This is made possible by alteration in law, its operations and processes to suit the purpose of the state in the name of contingency.

Even though the Disaster Management Act, 2005 gave the Central government power to take quick policy decisions and impose restrictions on people to manage a disaster, the Act had its failures, which includes; -

During this COVID 19 pandemic situation, the use of electronic data and transmission has replaced physical documentation to a larger extent; hence increase in privacy infringement also. Government took the responsibility of stringening the measures to protect the infringement of right to privacy as the existing laws were not successful in meeting its objective and lead to the introduction of Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 in Lok Sabha.

The bill recognizes the protection of personal data as a vital element of information privacy, use and flow of personal data, a structure for processing of data and also prescribes remedies for harmful and unauthorized processing of data. The bill also recommends establishment of Data Protection Authority of India to safeguard the interests of the data principal by preventing abuse and misuse of their data and it shall be held responsible for monitoring and enforcing the provision of this bill.

India is undergoing many challenges which include the inability to control the disease; immense economic losses, huge unemployment rate; increasing death rate etc which is an outcome of the violation of those rights provided to them by the Indian government. The most heartbreaking effect of COVID 19 pandemic is not the death caused or spread of disease but the means and measures taken by the government in this matter. The reluctant or casual responses from the side of the government are the reasons of this uncontrollable spread of disease in the Indian society.

Some of the policies of the government that evidently shows the failure on the part of the government are as follows[9]:-

Lockdown was the most prevailing and most adopted strategy adopted by most of the countries across the world to prevent the spread of the disease by maintaining a physical distance between them. India being a nation with around 95% of the population is involved in unskilled employment of which most of them are paid on the basic of daily wages. They are completely depended on the day to day work and run their family according to it. The strategy of adopting Lock down in India with short notice to the public has created a panicking situation among the population of India as they were not given enough time to prepare for the following days of unemployment which eventually lead them to die out of poverty.

Moreover, around one-third of the urban population and quarter of the rural population live in congested and crowded areas in small dwellings with five or more people confined in one room facilities as they have left their home land and settled in the cities in search of better job opportunities and work and their inability to afford better environment. The “stay at home” policy has confined them to these single room environments for a prolonged period with lack of basic necessities and clean environment, has later become the breeding ground for wide spread of disease effecting a huge number of citizens in a very short period of time. Due to the unavailability of the expected physical distancing, clean water to wash hands regularly, lack of money to even pay for the essentials has lead to this disasteristic effect in the society.

If these factors were taken into consideration beforehand, essentials commodities were given free of cost to these poor people, essential measures to provide social distancing environment by replacing them from their confined environment to schools, flats etc. before adopting lockdown provisions in it would have reduced the death rate as well as wide spread of disease in most of the states in India. This flaw from the government has lead to death of huge masses of population in India.

The decision of adopting lockdown was imposed by the central government with the consultation with the National Disaster Management Authority alone. The state government was not given an opportunity to address their concerns and their requests were abruptly ignored or brushed aside. The lack of consultation and coordination among the state has created confusion among the state in matters of interstate movement of trains and buses which has lead to chaos and delayed services to the citizen which has hindered the lives of common individuals who used to travel from one area to another due to employment etc. similarly abrupt cancellation of air services without giving proper beforehand instructions of rules of lockdown has created a chaos to the people.

Above all, the state government was made responsible for providing essential public health and economic assistance during lockdown to the citizens but no funding was provided by the central government for meeting the additional requirements of the state which put the state in an unhelpful situation to meet the health and economic requirements of the state.

Lockdown is a strategy that should be adopted as the past weapon for the prevention of the spread of the disease when all other strategies have failed to do so, whereas in India, lockdown was adopted as the first measure to prevent the spread of the disease. It was initiated in India when the virus has started to be found in the individuals. It has inadequately affected the economic development as well as the livelihood of the citizen and forced the government to lift lockdown due to the unemployment environment created in the society. Hence the state of lifting of lockdown was during the crucial times of spread of disease which is the factor responsible for immense spread  of the disease in the country. The government’s lack of vision, plan and observation of the spread of virus has lead to thus untimely declarations in the society which is the sole reason for the death and wide spread of the disease in the society.

The government during this pandemic situation has failed to provide enough amenities such as personal protective equipments which created an unsafe environment for both the patients as well as the health services and is the root cause of increase in death rate of many patients and health workers which is a violation of their basic fundamental right to live with dignity which includes the right to die with dignity.

The health care workers were under the duty to take care for the patients and to prevent the spread of the virus. the measures taken by them includes expanding, training and deploying the public health force, ramping up testing capacity and availability, developing a clear plan to trace and quarantine contacts and ensuring key facilities including hospital beds, intensive care units, ventilators and other machines, personal protective equipment for health care workers etc. to treat and isolate the patients. The central government’s actions and involvements were extremely limited and inadequate in respect with the rate of spread of the disease; therefore, the whole pressure was left on to the hospital workers with no help from the government. The lack of amenities like personal protection kits, intensive care units, beds for the patients and doctors and nurses taking double shifts were not even solving the issue. This careless attitude can be experienced in the matters of vaccine availability also. The failure of the government to take necessary steps including providing the required necessities and amenities have lead to death of patients in the hospital.

Other impact can be seen in the delay of meditation and treatment given to those patients with other adverse health implications like TB, kidney failure, cancers etc. these people require regular study and checkup. The single minded focus on the COVID 19 because of the extreme pressure from the government has put the other patients’ lives also in risk.

A pandemic situation is not common to an Indian society, our past history have records of earlier pandemic situations and how our health workers came and fought for the prevention of the disease spread. The same strategy is followed by the health workers now but with the advancement and use of technology. The health workers across the country are fighting together to provide prevention of excessive spread of this disease, which is to an extent successful. Artificial intelligence and app based on technologies are used by them to track hotspots, monitor and understand the nature of COVID-19. The government of India has introduced the Aarogya Setu application[10] to have a track on the spread of the virus by digitally tracking COVID-19 patients and those in close contact with the patients. The government also urged the citizens to download the application to identify potential risks and provide immediate help. Even though the application aims at providing users information as to whether they are prone to a COVID-19 infection by analyzing their proximity to COVID Positive persons, the application had a drawback of collecting information from persons without their knowledge and hence interfering in the privacy of the individual. It also had negative impacts in the society for instance the health workers will be shown prone to COVID-19 disease through the application, because of which the lot of landlords or neighbors harassed or even refused to accommodate them.

Aarogya Setu application also have the technological advancement of monitoring the GPS location of an individual who is sick and also considers medical data to be personal sensitive data and provides for inbuilt privacy features to protect these data, because of the lack of stringent laws in India for the protection of privacy, these data’s are prone to be misused. The lack of proper study on an application for calculating the effected individual of a society and the impact it shall have on the society are to be studied before hand of the pandemic and not after the attack of the virus, which is why the government could not provide enough measures for preventing the adverse impact on the society.

For establishing an analytical framework for the creation of categorical variable To assist the health workers in collecting data of COVID-19 cases, a multidimensional descriptive typology[11] was developed which would establish an analytical framework focusing on these categories such as proximity and contact tracing; symptom monitoring; quarantine control and flow modeling. The information is obtained through telephone towers, mobile applications, Bluetooth connections, surveillance video, social media feeds, smart thermometers, credit card records, wearable, and several other devices. In addition to these, Apple and Google which is world’s largest information technology companies have unprecedentedly banded together to create application programming interfaces that shall enable an inter- operation between android and iOS devices to provide a Bluetooth based exposure notification platform by building this functionality into the platform, thus providing information related to health status, behavior or location of individuals to the public health authorities or any other authorities to monitor on individuals personal information without their explicit consent, which is an infringement of an individual’s right to privacy guaranteed by the Indian Constitution.

The lack of stringent laws on privacy is the root cause for the companies having access to the personal data’s of the individual, which are sources by which the personal data are collected without the consent of the individual as an explicit consent is provided by us while using the devices, which is the main gateway through with the personal information are used and prevented from questioning the consent.

Government Websites[12] like corona virus disease 19; trace together and COVID safe are also eminent platforms for infringement of a person’s right to privacy as a central server is used to collect and record PII information of citizens and upon which evaluation is conducted. Another authority such as marketing company or advertising company shall be able to collect these information which includes their personal data such as name, phone number, contact lists, postcode. Home addresses, location trails and deduce a social communication through messages sent to their phone numbers and market for their product. These kinds of getting text messages to our personal phone without us providing information to them has increased to a larger extend in this COVID 19 pandemic out of which majority of them turned to be fraudulent company with the intention to obtain money from the patients or patients family making full utilization of this pandemic situation.

The lack of proper guidelines on what data shall be displayed and what shall not be displayed is a reason for the personal data being published without any restriction. The government should have made necessary rules and regulations on the working of the government website as it is a platform which is accessible to all citizens and therefore those data have an high chance of being misused for other purposes which shall also include crimes.

This COVID 19 pandemic situation has forced the government to initiate lockdown measures across the country where the individual’s right to free movement is curtailed to reduce the spread of disease. But prolonged lock down scenarios affects the mental health of the individual. The online classes, work from home situations engage students and employees whereas the majority unemployed youngsters are forced to live in isolation. To escape from boredom they engage in online gaming platforms[13] such as video games. This may later become an addiction. To an extend it is a stress management mechanism, but may also open up a platform for hacking experts to utilize the information and even control the minds of the player i.e. the youngster. The player shall not check for what all have they given consent to as they blindfoldly accept the “accept cookie” icon and fall for these traps, which indirectly is an impact of COVID 19 pandemic situation.

Studies have also proved that lockdown have created a platform for increasing rates of crimes in the society and the shocking news is that most of the crimes are committed by youngsters. The untimely and prolonged lockdown by the government without giving any pre hand notice to the citizen gave them less time to prepare for the lockdown situation. It has adversely impacted the youngsters who are neither like school going children who had online classes, nor employees who have work. They eventually fall victims to heinous crimes of online fraud, child pornography also. The lack of government’s vision on how the lockdown shall impact the youngsters are the reasons for increase in crimes committed by them like online frauds, child pornography etc and those to which they are victims also.

The researchers also suggest the following measures that shall be taken for better governance in this matter, which includes;

Thus, by following the suggestions, it can be ensured that the privacy of the citizens is not violated during COVID-19 pandemic.

Along this research, the researcher focused her study on the main two areas on which government need to incorporate more adequate measures for the welfare of the citizen and also put forth suggestions that shall be taken by the government for solving the issues of the existing scenarios.