Patna, Aug 30 (PTI) The Patna High Court today directed the Bihar government to crack down on all illegal pathological labs operating in the state and ensure that they were closed down within two weeks.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice M R Shah and Justice Ravi Ranjan passed the order on a Public Interest Litigation filed by the Indian Association of Pathologists and Microbiologists and others.

In the PIL, the court's attention was drawn to the fact that in in the state, "various polyclinics, diagnostic centres, nursing homes and small, medium and large hospitals are functioning in an illegal manner without there being any proper regulatory measures to evaluate their functioning".

The court directed the state government to file a report of the action taken by it within two weeks.

Noting that the state had so far placed on record data relating to pathology labs of only 19 districts, the court also ordered that details of such laboratories and diagnostic centres be produced by the next date of hearing.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)