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Elgaar Parishad case: Activist Arun Ferreira alleges tampering with Covid certificate, seeks probe

ACTIVIST ARUN Ferreira, who was arrested in the Elgaar Parishad case, has filed an application before the special court seeking an inquiry over his claim that he was given a different Covid-19 vaccination certificate from the one accessed by his family from the CoWin app.

Ferreira has annexed both the certificates with his plea. Lodged at Taloja central jail, Ferreira’s plea states that on January 4, he had made an oral request to the prison superintendent seeking a copy of both his Covid vaccination certificates. His plea states he was told to ask his family to access the certificate from the CoWin app. He said he told his family to print the certificate. Later, a certificate was also provided by the prison authorities.

“However, on close perusal of this purported certificate, the applicant found his name, age, Aadhar UID number, beneficiary reference ID incorrectly mentioned and also, surprisingly, the batch numbers of both the vaccination doses to be identical,” his plea states. It alleges that there is a ‘tampering’ of the digital database of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and seeks an inquiry, calling it a serious instance of fraud.

“Accused No. 8 Arun Ferreira has filed an application for inquiry into the serious fraud and tampering of the Central government’s digital database of Covid-19 records by prison admin. It be returned to the applicant for forwarding the same to the court having jurisdiction over the issue,” the trial court said on his plea.
Meanwhile, the court also rejected a plea filed by activist Gautam Navlakha, arrested in the case seeking video call facility with his partner, Sahba Hussain. Navlakha’s plea had said that his partner is a senior citizen and a Delhi resident who is unable to travel to Taloja to visit him through physical mulaqats. Video call facility was started in jail amid Covid.
This article first appeared in indianexpress.com

Prisoners