The Supreme Court on Friday directed states and Union Territories to clear pending claims of families of those who died of Covid-19 within a week, the Hindustan Times reported.
The court also sought more information from Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and Delhi governments on the compensation paid to such families.
“We issue notice to the chief secretaries of Karnataka, NCT of Delhi, and Chhattisgarh, directing them to file status reports on deaths registered, applications/claims received and claims sanctioned or paid,” a bench of Justices MR Shah and BV Nagarathna said.
On September 22, the Centre had told the Supreme Court that state governments will pay Rs 50,000 compensation to the families of Covid-19 victims.
The court on Friday noted that in Maharashtra, only about 8,000 claims were processed out of 1,09,000 applications. “We don’t understand the problem that always we have to fire at you,” the bench told the lawyer representing the state. “Tell your officers, this can’t become a daily affair.”
The court also noted that although Kerala has recorded 40,855 Covid deaths, it has released payments to only 548 people. It also noted that 10,778 applications for compensation had been filed in the state.
The judges said that there was a “sorry state of affairs” in Kerala, NDTV reported. “As a welfare state it is their duty to pay compensation to people who have already suffered,” the court said.
Commenting on the figures provided by Rajasthan, Justice Shah asked why the state did not state how many applications it received, and questioned whether the government was trying to suppress the number of deaths.
“Who will believe that in the whole of Rajasthan only 8,955 died?” Justice Shah remarked.
The Supreme Court, on June 30, had asked the National Disaster Management Authority to frame guidelines for ex-gratia compensation within six weeks. However, the court had allowed the authority to decide the amount of compensation.
In October, the court told states and Union Territories not to deny compensation merely if the death certificate does not mention Covid-19 as the cause of the fatality. The court said that if a patient dies within 30 days of testing positive for coronavirus, the death should be considered to have been caused by the disease.
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