Petitioner and other leprosy patients as such the cause of action for filing this writ petition arises within the territorial jurisdiction of Indore High Court.

1. The national survey for determining new cases relating to detection rate of leprosy and to publish and bring in the public domain the reports of national sample survey on leprosy conducted in 2010-2011 and further to conduct regular and sustainable massive awareness campaigns for the general public to dispel the fear associated with leprosy and support and encourage the people afflicted with the said disease to lead a life of equality and dignity.

2. That, leprosy is back in India. Health officials and activists celebrated 13 years ago when India announced that leprosy had been eliminated as a public health concern. Alarm bells rang as the Central Leprosy Division of the health ministry reported that 135,485 new leprosy cases were detected in India in 2017. That meant every four minutes somebody was diagnosed with leprosy in India. This is nowhere close to elimination. Also, there are many new children found who were identified with this disease, and the number is continuously rising.

3. That, of the new cases detected, nearly half (67,160) have been diagnosed at an advanced stage, and the number of new detections is high. “Pockets of high endemicity report thousands of new cases every year,” the World Health Organization (WHO) noted in 2016, adding that in 2015, India had accounted for 60% of the global total of new cases.

4. That, people afflicted with leprosy are considered as outcasts by the society and do not gain acceptance by them and as such, are forced out of the society, wherein they band together and form colonies where people with leprosy and their relatives live together. These colonies house roughly 1000 patients and their families.

5. That, as mentioned in an order issued by the Deputy Director of Health Department, Bhopal under order number F-268/2019/35 dated 09/01/2019 which states that all the people suffering from leprosy are entitled to a pension of Rs. 2000 each, but the same has not been enacted upon, and an application from the ‘Sahyog Kusth Nivaran Sangh’ dated 17/01/2019 which asks for the implementation for the same.