Frame rules for compensation for Covid victims-SC to Centre

The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Centre to frame guidelines specifying ex-gratia amount for persons who died due to Covid-19 within six weeks. The court has not fixed any amount that is to be given and has left it to the wisdom of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). The government was also asked to issue death certificates which specify Covid-19 as the cause of the deaths and create insurance policies for medical treatment of Covid-19.The Supreme Court said the NDMA failed to do its statutory duty to prescribe minimum standards.

The court said under Section 12(iii) of DMA, it was mandatory for NDMA to issue guidelines on ex-gratia under minimum standards of relief as the word used in the Act is “shall”. “The statutory duty is cast upon the authority to frame guidelines for ex-gratia. By not recommending ex-gratia, it can be said that the national authority (NDMA) failed to perform its statutory duty under Section 12 of DMA,” said the bench of justices Ashok Bhushan and MR Shah. The order came on two separate petitions filed by advocates Gaurav Kumar Bansal and Reepak Kansal which claimed that Covid being a disaster notified under the Disaster Management Act (DMA) 2005, the Central government will be bound by Section 12(iii) of the Act providing for ex-gratia of Rs 4 lakh for those who died during the disaster. On March 14, 2020, the Centre had declared Covid-19 to be a disaster under DMA.

The petitioners argued that fiscal constraint can never be a ground to deny relief entitled to citizens under the DMA. The court also directed Centre to issue simplified guidelines for issuance of certificate of death due to Covid-19 and for making corrections in the certificate already issued. The bench further directed Centre to take appropriate steps for providing insurance cover as recommended by the finance commission