Unfair To Expect Children Orphaned Due To Covid To Procure Documents For Availing Benefits Under Welfare Schemes: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court on Monday observed that it will be unfair to expect children who lost their parents, one or both, due to Covid-19 to procure documents in order to avail benefits under various welfare schemes launched by the Delhi Government.

Taking note of the issues in relation to the verification process of such applications, Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Jasmeet Singh also directed Chief Secretary of the Delhi Government to file a status report regarding the process for dealing with the welfare schemes under Juvenile Justice Act. 

The bench also added that it expects the Chief Secretary to brush out the said issues after holding a meeting with the required stakeholders including Principal Secretary of Women and Child Department and Social Welfare Department.

"The GNCTD should involve procedures which are simple and easily implemented at the same time ensuring that benefits are not used by undeserving persons," the Court added.

"When you don't get food, every hour, every day matters," the Court remarked orally.

The Court was dealing with a bunch of petitions concerning the Covid-19 situation in the national capital.

The Court went ahead to implead Delhi State Legal Services Authority as a party to the pleas thereby seeking it's response while adjourning the matter to September 9.

The Court clarified that the objective of impleading DSLSA was to get its assistance in streamlining the entire system and also to extend help to the needy children with the process of obtaining and verification of their documents.

During the course of hearing, Advocate Prabhsahay Kaur apprised the Court about a case of one family involving 7 children who lost both of their parents this year due to Covid.

Kaur mentioned that the children, out of whom 2 are major and one of the children is male while other are females, were struggling to meet their demands and that the Delhi government's welfare scheme policy was not implemented qua them.

However, Senior Advocate Rahul Mehra appearing for the Delhi Government submitted before the Court that the implementation of scheme for grant of ex-gratia compensation of Rs. 50,000 to the affected children is taking time as there is a great deal of verification of documents required to be done.

With respect to the said case, Mehra submitted that an issue faced by the concerned authority was regarding address in Aadhar card of one of the children.

He submitted that although the government is trying to settle the case was UIDAI, the entire process is time consuming leading to a further delay in grant of compensation under welfare scheme.

"This problem can be there with any of us. We keep shifting. Merely because there are issues in Aadhar card doesn't mean a person has no identity," Justice Sanghi remarked.

On the other hand, Justice Singh remarked thus: 

"We appreciate your concern. We're all on same page. End of the day, proof of pudding is in the eating. You're saying your govt is conscious, we have no problem in that. Rotary has done a great job. End of the day, they want their rights. It's your policy. Why should it take so long? It should come from your side without our nudging."

Taking note of the specific incident raised, the Court said:

"Since the schemes have been framed to grant benefits to children, the approach of govt has to be to act proactively rather than approach such applications in a routine way."

The Delhi Government also claimed that about 6200 children have lost one parent whereas 292 children lost both of their parents in 2020-21 due to Covid-19. It also added that the said figures are likely to change as and when new data is collected.

Earlier, the Court had issued a slew of directions to the GNCTD for ensuring that it complies to the provisions of Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 in view of providing protection to the affected children. It observed that the Delhi Government had not opened up to reality for coming up with enough mechanism to safeguard the rights of children and that there was a complete bankruptcy in the departments of the Delhi Government.

The matter will now be heard on September 9.

Case Title: Rakesh Malhotra v. GNCTD