SC pulls up Centre for delaying compensation for COVID victims’ kin

The Supreme Court, on Friday (September 3), expressed displeasure at the Centre’s reluctance to grant compensation to families of those who died of COVID, despite a June 30 order clearly telling the government to do so besides framing guidelines for issuing death certificates.

The apex court, on Friday, reluctantly gave the government time till September 11 to file a compliance report on the June 30 order, asking it to act before “the third wave too would have passed.”

“The order on death certificates, (compensation for) death, etc. was passed long back. By the time you take further steps, third wave will also be over,” the SC said.

The court also asked the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) to issue death certificates for COVID-19 victims including the date and cause of death (CoD), and also have a system in place to correct CoD if the family demands.

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In its June 30 order, the SC had given six weeks to the NDMA to decide on the compensation amount and frame the required guidelines. The Centre had then told the court that a compensation of Rs 4 lakh per victim is too high. On Friday (September 3) too the government said the compensation could not be paid as it applied only to natural disasters, besides states could not afford such a high amount proposed by petitioners – for every family.

“Utilisation of scarce resources for giving ex-gratia, may have unfortunate consequences of affecting the pandemic response and health expenditure in other aspects and hence cause more damage than good,” the government said in the court.