Ex-gratia aid also to family of those who fall prey to coronavirus in future, SC told
The Centre on Wednesday informed the Supreme Court that an amount of Rs 50,000 will be given by the States as ex-gratia to the kin of all those who died of Covid-19 and also to those who die of the disease in future. The ex-gratia assistance will also be given to the kin of those who died of the virus due to involvement in Covid-19 relief operations or activities associated with the preparedness for dealing with the pandemic, the Centre said.
In an affidavit, the Centre said the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has made these recommendations.
The ex-gratia assistance will be subject to the cause of death being certified as Covid-19 as per the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the ICMR, the Government said. It added that the ex-gratia assistance will be provided by States from the State Disaster Response Fund.
On September 3, the top court had expressed displeasure over delay in framing of guidelines for issuance of death certificates to the families of those who died of Covid-19. The SC had in its June 30 verdict directed the NDMA to recommend within six weeks the guidelines for ex-gratia to the family of the Covid victims.
On June 30, Justice Ashok Bhushan-headed bench ordered the Centre to implement the mandated ex-gratia to Covid victims, which was cancelled by the Government, when Covid started spreading.
Before the first lockdown, as per NDMA guidelines, Rs 4 lakh was granted as ex-gratia when a calamity is declared as a national disaster. But after declaring the lockdown, an order was issued to cancel the ex-gratia provision. The Prime Minister-chaired NDMA received flak from the SC for it.
The SC also ordered steps to simplify guidelines for issuance of “death certificates/official documents stating the exact cause of death, that is, ‘Death due to Covid-19’” for enabling dependents to get benefits of welfare schemes.
A bench also comprising Justice MR Shah, however, had noted the “peculiarity and the impact and effect” of the pandemic and said that it cannot order payment of Rs 4 lakh as ex-gratia compensation which should be decided by the NDMA as there was a need to “focus simultaneously on prevention, preparedness, mitigation and recovery, which calls for a different order of mobilisation of both financial and technical resources”.
“The courts would be very slow to interfere with priorities fixed by the Government in providing reliefs, unless it is patently arbitrary and/or not in the larger public interest at all. The Government should be free to take policy decisions/decide priorities..,” the Bench said while refusing to fix the compensation amount.
“We direct the NDMA to recommend guidelines for ex gratia assistance on account of loss of life to the family members of the persons who died due to Covid-19, as mandated under Section 12(iii) of Disaster Management Act (DMA) 2005 for the minimum standards of relief to be provided to the persons affected by disaster - Covid-19 Pandemic, over and above the guidelines already recommended for the minimum standards of relief to be provided..,” it said.
Justice Shah, writing the 66-page judgement for the bench, had directed the Centre to take appropriate steps on recommendations of the Finance Commission on providing insurance cover for deaths caused by Covid. The direction came after the Centre said that presently there was no guideline/policy/scheme in NDMA which relates to National Insurance mechanism that may be used to pay for disaster related deaths due to Covid”.
The top court’s verdict came on two separate pleas filed by lawyers Reepak Kansal and Gaurav Kumar Bansal seeking directions to the Centre and the states to provide Rs 4 lakh compensation to the families of coronavirus victims as provisioned under the Act.