Panaji: The High Court of Bombay at Goa on Monday permitted the state government to allow fully vaccinated persons to enter Goa without COVID-19 negative certificate.
Fully vaccinated persons, post 14 days of the vaccination, are permitted to enter the state without negative RT-PCR report, according to the High Court order.
The state government had filed an application before the High Court pleading to allow all such persons who have taken both the doses of vaccine to enter Goa without the COVID negative certificate.
Before deciding on the application, the High Court had asked the state government to explain on an affidavit ‘what is the meaning of liberal tourism’, which the COVID expert committee had recommended not to start in the present COVID situation. The expert committee had also unanimously decided that all fully vaccinated persons should be allowed to enter Goa without a COVID-19 negative certificate.
The High Court, by an ad-interim relief, had permitted fully vaccinated workforce and residents of Goa to enter the state with COVID vaccine certificate even in the absence of a COVID-19 negative certificate. The categories of fully vaccinated people who were permitted without the COVID negative certificate were the workforce, that is persons who enter the state for purposes of work in industries, labour force, construction, etc; people who enter Goa for purposes of business; residents of Goa who are now stranded outside Goa due to pandemic-related or other such issues and residents of Goa who are required to travel outside the state for work or medical reasons and return back after a few days.
The High Court had directed the state government to make COVID negative certificate, issued 72 hours prior to travel, mandatory from May 10 for those people coming to Goa from other states.
The High Court had said, “By way of an interim order, we direct the state administration to ensure that no persons are permitted entry into the state unless they possess a negativity certificate obtained within 72 hours from the time they seek entry into the state.
This will not prevent the state government from formulating a protocol to deal with the issues of essential supplies and the procedure for entry of the persons involved in essential supplies. This protocol should, however, provide the necessary safeguards to ensure that such persons are not COVID positive at the time of entry into the state.”
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