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Settle Covid aid claims without delay: SC to states
A bench of justices MR Shah and BV Nagarathna said, “We close the present proceedings by directing all states to see that compensation payable under our earlier judgment and orders be paid to eligible candidates without wasting any time.”
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The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that states are bound to settle all claims for Covid ex-gratia payment of ₹50,000 without wasting any further time after it was informed that some states were yet to process such claims.
A bench of justices MR Shah and BV Nagarathna said, “We close the present proceedings by directing all states to see that compensation payable under our earlier judgment and orders be paid to eligible candidates without wasting any time.”
The order came while disposing an application filed by a former Andhra Pradesh legislator of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) alleging that funds to the tune of ₹1,100 crore meant for Covid ex-gratia under the State Disaster Respond Fund (SDRF) was diverted by Andhra Pradesh towards compensating farmers affected due to draught in the state.
Responding to the issue raised in the application, the Andhra Pradesh government informed the apex court on Monday that the money was diverted from SDRF to a personal deposit account for financing input subsidy to farmers for ‘kharif’ crop as a gratuitous relief. However, the state agreed to transfer the said amount back to SDRF.
The bench recorded this submission in its order and said, “The said amount shall be re-transferred to SDRF within two weeks. The said amount is to be dealt with and utilised according to the provisions of the Disaster Management Act, 2005 and the purpose for the said amount may be for payment of Covid ex-gratia.” In case, some persons are still not paid compensation, the bench directed them to approach the grievance redressal committee (GRC) for either non-payment of compensation or rejection of their claim.
The apex court on June 30 last year held that families of those who died due to Covid-19 will be entitled to ex-gratia payment under DMA, 2005 since Covid was a notified disaster under the said Act. This decision came on a set of two public interest litigations (PILs), one of which was filed by advocate Gaurav Kumar Bansal. He had since been helping with the roll-out of compensation by gathering data on payments made by states and flagging states which were lax.
This judgment was followed by an order of October 4 where the bench quantified the ex-gratia amount of ₹50,000 to be paid out of SDRF account to persons who died due to Covid. As proof, claimants could show death certificate showing cause of death due to Covid, or hospital records, RT-PCR reports showing death having occurred within 30 days of testing Covid positive at home, in hospital or even beyond 30 days of admission at the hospital.
