How Supreme Court's Interventions Led To Increase In Claims For COVID-19 Death Compensation?

In the case Gaurav Kumar Bansal versus Union of India, a bench comprising Justice MR Shah and Justice AS Bopanna thus expanded the scope of determination as under -

"i) Covid-19 cases, for the purpose of considering the deaths of the deceased due to Covid-19, are those which are diagnosed through a positive RT-PCR/Molecular Tests/RAT or clinically determined through investigations in a hospital/in-patient facility by a treating physician, while admitted in the hospital/in-patient facility;

ii) that the deaths occurring within 30 days from the date of testing or from the date of being clinically determined as a Covid-19 case shall be treated as "Deaths due to Covid-19", even if the death takes place outside the hospital/in-patient facility;

iii) also, the Covid-19 case while admitted in the hospital/in-patient facility and who continued to be admitted beyond 30 days and died subsequently shall also be treated as a Covid-19 death;

iv) Covid-19 cases which are not resolved and have died either in the hospital settings or at home, and where a Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD) in Form 4 & 4A has been issued to the registering authority, as required under Section 10 of the Registration of Birth & Death (RBD) Act, 1969, shall also be treated as Covid-19 death. However, it is observed and made clear that irrespective of the cause of death mentioned in the death certificate, if a family member satisfies the eligibility criteria mentioned in paragraphs 11(i) to 11(iv) as above shall also be entitled to the ex-gratia payment of Rs. 50,000/- on production of requisite documents as observed hereinabove, and no State shall deny the ex-gratia payment of Rs. 50,000/- on the ground that in the death certificate the cause of death is not mentioned as "Died due to Covid-19";"

The Court also raised concerns regarding the Centre's guidelines not considering the deaths occurring due to suicide as COVID-19 deaths even if COVID-19 was an accompanying condition.  Following the concerns expressed by the Bench, the Centre revised its eligibility criteria to include kins/family members of COVID patients who committed suicide. Taking note of this, the Court directed :

"a family member of the deceased who committed suicide within 30 days from being diagnosed as Covid-19 positive shall also be entitled to avail the financial help/ex-gratia assistance of Rs. 50,000/- as granted under the SDRF in accordance with the guidelines dated 11.09.2021 issued by the NDMA under Section 12(iii) of DMA, 2005, as directed hereinabove;"

Therefore, the Supreme Court's intervention has, in essence, enlarged the eligibility criteria to include kins/family members of those deceased persons who were otherwise found to be ineligible as per the official records of the State Governments/Union Territories.

Statistics based on Court's order dated 19.01.2022 and Centre's statement dated 16.01.2022.

The Centre's statement dated 16.01.2022 showed that 6,20,136 applications for compensation were received by States as against the official death toll of 4,66,757 in all states.

On January 19, the Court noted that in some states, the number of applications is less than the official toll. For example, in Kerala, as against registered deaths of 49,300, only 27,274 claims were received. The Court directed the State to pay compensation with respect to the registered deaths by reaching out to the kin of the victims within a period of one week.

A bench comprising Justice MR Shah and Justice Sanjiv Khanna also noted that many applications were rejected. For example - in Gujarat, 4,234 claims are rejected; in Maharashtra, 49,113 claims are rejected; in Tamil Nadu, 10,138 claims are rejected; in Telangana, 1,459 claims are rejected. The Court noted that the reasons for such rejection may be due to incomplete form and/or incomplete particulars and/or incomplete information etc.

In this backdrop, the Court directed that no claim shall be rejected on technical grounds and if there is any defect in the claim application, an opportunity should be given to the concerned Claimant to rectify the mistake. Also, wherever the claims are rejected, the reasons for the rejection must be communicated to the concerned Claimants and they may be given an opportunity to rectify their claim applications. The Court further directed that such particulars of rejection shall be sent to the Grievance Redressal Committee (constituted pursuant to the earlier order passed by this Court), within a period of one week.

The Court also directed the States to reach out to children who became orphans due to COVID to pay them compensation as they may not be in a position to file the claim applications.

It may also be recalled that it was due to the Supreme Court's judgment of June 2021 in the Reepak Bansal case that the Centre agreed to pay ex-gratia to COVID victims.  In that case, the Court had declared that kin of persons who succumbed to COVID are entitled to compensation under the National Disaster Management Act, refuting the Central Government's argument Section 12 of NDMA did not create a mandatory obligation on the part of the Government to pay compensation.

Thus, one can witness the Court's active role in monitoring the COVID compensation disbursement process giving positive results to provide succour to the victims of the pandemic.