After informing the Division Bench of Justices Vineet Kothari and R Suresh Kumar of the Madras High Court last Friday that the Tamil Nadu government had no plans to enforce a complete lockdown in Chennai as Lockdown 5.0 with some relaxations was already in force throughout the State, Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami on Monday announced a 12-day “double lockdown” in Chennai and certain parts of Chengalpattu, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts surrounding the capital city from 19 to 30 June.

The announcement is tantamount to contempt of the High Court, but the mere announcement of the harshest ever lockdown has almost halved the daily tally of COVID-19 cases in the city.

Asked about the sudden reconsideration, Chief Secretary Shanmugam, who is on a three-month extension of service, said, “We want to control the movement of people going out of Chennai to other districts.” Because of the harsh, nay punitive nature of the lockdown in Chennai, those who had the right contacts and affordability obtained e-passes and left the city in a steady stream in the last few days.

The ordinary citizen was denied e-passes to escape from Chennai. Justice Suresh Kumar in fact wanted to know if the government had stopped issuing epasses. Additional Advocate-General SR Rajagopal said these were only rumours. It is by brute force that a sizeable section of Chennai residents is being held back in the city.

The double lockdown period includes two Sundays: 21 June and 28 June. The government wants the people to subsist on milk only. Grocery, vegetable and provision shops will be shut on both Sundays. Milk will be allowed to be sold, that too from 8 am to 12 noon on these two sabbath days.

Provision and grocery stores, however, would be allowed to function between 6 am and 2 pm on the other 10 days of double lockdown. Cars, taxis and autorickshaws would not be allowed during the 12 days, but petrol pumps are allowed to function. People are advised to buy essential supplies “without using their vehicles” and from stores that are located within two km from their residences.

A public interest litigation petition in the Madras High Court asserted that lockdown was not a solution to control the spread of Covid-19 and that the number of cases and fatalities due to the disease had gone up considerably notwithstanding successive lockdowns imposed throughout Tamil Nadu since 25 March.

Neither the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, nor the Disaster Management Act, 2005, or any other law of the land, provides for imposition of lockdown. Yet, the government had chosen to curtail the freedom of the people through repeated lockdowns and the unelected bureaucrats are given a free reign to frame illogical rules and regulations, unmindful of the sufferings faced by the people.

“The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants,” cautioned Albert Camus in Resistance, Rebellion and Death.