Kerala Communist Government Deal On Sharing Covid-19 Patients Data With US Firm: High Court Raises 3 Queries

The Kerala High Court has issued a notice to the Left Democratic Front (LDF) Government in the State, asking it to respond to three queries the judges have raised on the controversial Coronavirus (Covid-19) data-sharing deal.

Malayalam daily Malayala Manorama reported that a two-judge bench comprising Justices Devan Ramachandran and T R Ravi asked the Pinarayi Vijayan government to respond to its queries by 24 April on a petition filed by lawyer Balu Gopalakrishnan.

The judges asked the LDF Government why the State Law Department did not vet the deal with the US-based firm Sprinklr on the deal to record data of Coronavirus patients and suspects in Kerala.

The bench asked why the State Government entered into a deal when any dispute regarding it could be tried only in a foreign court. Third, the judges sought to know why a cloud platform is being used to store patients data even after the number of Coronavirus cases in the State has dropped.

Balu Gopalakrishnan, in his petition, argued that data supplied to Sprinklr was a valuable commodity in the data market that could fetch millions of dollars and wondered why it was done so.

The Kerala government led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist began using the citizen experience management platform of Sprinklr to record Coronavirus data.

The deal with the US firm, founded by Ragi Thomas hailing from Mavelikkara in Kerala’s Alappuzha district, has triggered a controversy in the State with the Opposition seeking a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

US multi-national pharmaceutical major Pfizer is reported to have got access to the Kerala coronavirus data, according to local media reports.

The US firm’s citizen experience management platform is used to record data on Covid-19 patients and suspects in the state.