E-Paper
SC refrains from directing Centre to include Covid cover under insurance scheme
Even as it directed the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) to frame a scheme to pay ex-gratia for families of those who died due to Covid-19, the top court did not opine on whether the Centre should consider including the coronavirus pandemic for risk insurance coverage against natural disasters in the country.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday refrained from issuing any directive to the Centre to include Covid-19 in the national insurance scheme.
Even as it directed the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) to frame a scheme to pay ex-gratia for families of those who died due to Covid-19, the top court did not opine on whether the Centre should consider including the coronavirus pandemic for risk insurance coverage against natural disasters in the country.
On Wednesday, the bench of justices Ashok Bhushan and MR Shah delivered its judgment on the PILs, filed by advocates Gaurav Kumar Bansal and Reepak Kansal, while taking note of the recommendations made by the XV Finance Commission regarding a national insurance scheme for disaster-related deaths.
The judgment, however, did not specify if the national insurance scheme, which can form part of the ‘minimum standards of relief’ under the NDMA, should consider including Covid-19 as well since the infection was notified as a disaster by the Centre under the disaster management law in March 2020 itself. The bench has not made any comment on inclusion of Covid-19 under the national insurance scheme.
