The Madras High Court on Tuesday directed the State government to issue appropriate instructions to restaurants, eateries, bakeries, grocery stores and so on asking their employees not to use saliva to separate food covers or blow into the covers to open them.
Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy issued the direction on a public interest litigation petition filed by advocate B. Ramkumar Adityan, who feared that such common practice of vendors might end up acting as a super spreader of COVID-19.
Appreciating the litigant for coming up with a good suggestion, the Chief Justice told his counsel that, many a times, people tend to touch their tongues with their fingers while separating the covers used for packing food items and also blow into them in their attempt to open the covers.
“The State government should take note of the suggestion and create awareness or issue instructions to all businesses where such practices may be in vogue to encourage the management to educate the employees so that they refrain from continuing with the practice,” the first Division ordered and adjourned the case by four weeks for submission of a report.
The court asked Advocate-General R. Shunmugasundaram to make sure that the government filed a report, after a month, listing the steps taken by it in this regard.
The petitioner was directed to serve copies of case papers on the office of the Advocate-General so that he could follow it up.
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