With a sudden rise in the number of Covid-19 cases, the Telangana High Court on Monday asked the government to take a call on imposing lockdown or curfew across the state in 48 hours.

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If the government does not do so, the court would be compelled to order enforcement of night curfew or weekend lockdown in view of the steep spurt in Covid-19 cases, a division bench of the court said.

The division bench comprising Chief Justice Hima Kohli and Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy referred to the court’s earlier advisories to the government and reiterated that the number of participants in marriages should be no more than 50 and at funerals 20.

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Telangana reported 5,926 fresh COVID-19 cases pushing the tally to over 3.6 lakh, while the toll rose to 1,856 with 18 more fatalities, the state government said on Monday.

The government only furnished a circular it had issued for imposing a fine against those who were not wearing masks and submitted that all other standard operating procedures issued by the Centre in November 2020 during Unlock-6 were being followed.

Advocate-General BS Prasad said the government was monitoring the situation by the minute. The bench grilled them for not furnishing the data and details it had asked for and sought to know the minute details of the steps that were taken to contain the second wave.

The court issued the following directions to the government:

The occupancy rate in cinema halls should be 50 per cent or even 1/3rd of the hall capacity depending on the situation
Tabulated statement showing the number of tests conducted for the last one week through RT-PCR, RAT etc
Steps taken to monitor cases at airports, railway stations, inter-state bus terminals
A decision on putting a curb on the passengers coming from neighbouring states
A decision to be taken by the government to impose night curfew or partial lockdown during the weekends in the state and the districts where the cases are more.
Directions to be issued to the Kumbh Mela returnees to get themselves tested, quarantined etc.

The next status report should be filed within two days and PILs have been adjourned to April 23.