The Supreme Court on Wednesday chastised the states for rejecting the monetary claims by thousands of families that had lost members to Covid and ordered the governments to directly reach out to orphaned children with financial succour.
The court said no application for ex gratia should be rejected outright on technicalities. It told the states to contact individually each of the children who had been orphaned by the pandemic and ensure that they directly received the benefits of Rs 50,000 as it would be difficult for them to apply.
Around 10,000 children are estimated to have lost both parents to Covid.
“Is this not unfortunate, Mr Mehta, that we have to call out state after state and listen to all of this?” Justice M.R. Shah asked solicitor-general Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the Centre.
“In every state, people believe they are at the mercy of the State,” Justice Shah, who headed the bench that also included Justice Sanjiv Khanna, said.
“We direct all states that whenever claims are rejected, the reasons for rejection must be communicated to the claimants and they must be given an opportunity to rectify their claims….
“We make it clear that no claims be rejected on technical grounds. Claimants must be given a chance to rectify their applications and such claims (must) be seen by the grievance redressal committees within a week from today.”
The bench pulled up the chief secretaries of Andhra Pradesh and Bihar for their administrations’ failure to provide ex gratia to a large number of claimants. The court expressed surprise that there were far fewer applications for ex gratia in Kerala than the number of Covid deaths.
The court said it would pass a detailed order on Thursday.
The bench was dealing with a PIL filed by advocate Gaurav Kumar Bansal that had, over multiple hearings, led the top court to direct the states to pay an ex gratia of Rs 50,000 to every family that had lost a member to Covid.
This was to be over and above any compensation the families would be eligible for under insurance and other statutory provisions.
The apex court noted that while Gujarat had rejected 4,000 applications for ex gratia without citing any reason, Kerala had claimed to have received 27,000 claims against 49,000 Covid deaths.
“Every state has received more applications, why not yours?” the bench asked the Kerala counsel.
Maharashtra informed the court that it had so far paid 1.27 lakh people but was reminded by the bench that this was just 50 per cent of the recorded deaths.
The court said that since many states had rejected large numbers of claim applications and their governments were not taking steps to address the matter, it would explore taking the help of the state and district legal services to reach out to victims’ families for disbursement of compensation.
Punjab informed the court that 8,786 claims had been received and 6,667 of them processed.
“The poorest may not even have the information (about the ex gratia). There is discrepancy in the figures coming state-wise. Is there a reason for this? All the deaths must be recorded in the central registry,” Justice Khanna told additional solicitor-general Aishwarya Bhati, who too appeared for the Centre.
Andhra Pradesh chief secretary Sameer Sharma, who had been summoned by the court, apologised and promised that all the rejected applications would be rechecked.
“It is a very serious matter that the records maintained by you are faulty…. You are dismissing applications on defects, please get it rechecked. The money should reach the people and that is our goal,” Justice Shah told Sharma.
Sharma said: “We will have it verified and we will be in contempt if it is not done. It is distressing to appear before this hon’ble court. This is the first time I have come to the Supreme Court, that too in such a situation.”
The bench then addressed Bihar chief secretary Amir Subhani, highlighting that the number of deaths in the state was far higher than the 11,095 applications it had received.
The court made it clear that all eligible families should be paid the ex gratia.
