The Bombay High Court recently issued notice in connection to a plea filed by a man seeking compensation of Rs 1,000 crore from the Maharashtra government, the Union government, the Serum Institute of India (SII) and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, for the death of his daughter, who he claimed died due to the side effects she suffered after she was administered vaccines against Covid-19.
Justice Sanjay V Gangapurwala and Justice Madhav J Jamdar, on August 26, sought response from the authorities during the next hearing on November 17.
Petitioner Dilip Lunawat has made Gates a party to the case, as the Bill Gates Foundation had funded SII’s efforts in manufacturing the Covishield vaccine.
Lunawat has claimed that his daughter Snehal, a medical student in Nashik, was given both doses of Covishield under the state’s initiative to vaccinate healthcare workers. He added that due to side effects of the vaccines, Snehal passed away on March 1, last year.
He claimed that health workers like his daughter were compelled to take the vaccines due to “false narratives created by the Drug Controller General of India, the director of AIIMS as well as the Maharashtra and the Union governments.
The petition claimed that the Union government’s Adverse Events Following Immunisation Committee, last October, had admitted that his daughter died due to the side effects of Covishield. Lunawat sought from the court a declaration that the authorities have “callous criminal attitude, as they have continued with their narrative that they have treatment for side effects of anti-Covid vaccines”.
The petition filed through advocate Abhishek Mishra also sought directions to the state to pay an interim compensation of Rs 1,000 crore, which can be recovered from SII. It also sought a direction to the Centre to take steps against social media companies, which are involved in the “conspiracy of suppressing correct data about deaths caused due to vaccine side effects”.