New Delhi: Describing Sonam Wangchuk’s current state as “illegal and unlawful detention under the pretext of medical intervention,” his wife, Gitanjali Angmo, has approached the Delhi High Court seeking Wanghchuk’s immediate discharge from Safdarjung Hospital to a private hospital of her choice.
Filed on 19 July, the plea comes a day after Delhi police said they “shifted” Wangchuk from the CJP protest site near Jantar Mantar at 7:44 am Saturday morning—where he had been on a hunger strike for the past 20 days—citing the Delhi High Court’s directions and expert medical advice.
The primary relief sought by Angmo, in an extraordinary original jurisdiction writ petition, is for the court to declare her husband’s continued confinement as unconstitutional and to “permit his immediate discharge and facilitate his transfer to a hospital or medical facility of his and the Petitioner’s (Angmo) choice”. She contended that his removal from the protest site was conducted “in an arbitrary manner” and without “free and informed consent”.
The petition emphasizes that Wangchuk should not be subjected to “continued involuntary hospitalisation” at the government-run facility.
In a post on X around 10 am Sunday morning, Angmo said she has lost faith in Safdarjung Hospital – and despite repeated requests, the hospital has “refused to discharge him or allow us to shift him to a private hospital of our choice”.
“With around 30 police personnel stationed on our floor and well over 100 across the hospital, our movement is severely restricted. It is not medical care. It is illegal detention,” she wrote.
“The hospital told us Wangchuk’s potassium had dropped to 2.9, describing it as alarming and life-threatening. Yet, in its public health bulletin, it conveniently omitted the actual number, referring only to “decreasing potassium levels”. When after 10 hours and repeated requests, they allowed us to take samples of his blood at 10.30 pm, an independent laboratory test reported 3.5, well within the normal range[…]If anything happens to Sonam, the hospital authorities and the government must bear full responsibility. I have therefore moved the High Court and sought an urgent hearing today, praying for permission to shift Sonam before his health deteriorates further. No family should have to fight the system simply to choose where their loved one receives medical care,” the post reads.
The respondents to her plea are the Central government, through the Ministry of Home Affairs; the Delhi government, through the Ministry of Home Affairs; the Commissioner of Delhi Police; and Vardhman Mahavir Medical College and Safdarjung Hospital.
Bodily autonomy and consent
A critical focus of the plea is Wangchuk’s right to refuse or choose his own medical treatment. Angmo has requested the court to restrain the hospital from “administering any medicine, fluid, or medical intervention of any kind” to Wangchuk “without his free and informed consent”. In instances where he may be unable to provide consent, she demands that no treatment be given without her informed consent as “his next of kin”. This request stems from her concern that medical interventions are being used as a device to “suppress his fundamental right to protest through a hunger strike”.
Angmo is also urging the court to grant “unrestricted and continued access” to her husband for his legal counsel and the doctors who have been monitoring his health for the duration of his 21-day fast. She alleges that Wangchuk is currently being kept ‘in isolation and has been arbitrarily denied’ access to his lawyers and trusted medical team.
Finally, the petition seeks a direction for the hospital to furnish to her with complete, accurate and contemporaneous medical records on a “real-time basis”. This demand follows the significant discrepancy in Wangchuk’s potassium levels as recorded by the hospital lab and an independent lab.
(Edited by Vidhi Bhutra)
Also read: CJP protest: Safdarjung says Wangchuk stable, wife alleges ‘illegal detention’