The Supreme Court had last month fixed timelines to file compensation claims for Covid-19 deaths, the health ministry said in a statement on Monday. The ex-gratia assistance was announced by the National Disaster Management Authority for families of members who died after contracting the virus.
For deaths that occurred before March 20 this year, the Supreme Court has set a deadline of 60 days for applicants to file compensation claims, the statement said. For future deaths, the court has given 90 days’ time from the day of the incident to seek ex-gratia compensation.
Earlier, the deadline to claim compensation was of four weeks, Mint reported. Last month, however, the Supreme Court had told the Centre that the time was insufficient as families would still be mourning the loss of their members.
The Supreme Court also made some exceptions in the new order passed on March 24, the statement released on Monday said.
The court said that in case of an “extreme hardship”, if the claimant was unable to submit a compensation application within the stipulated time period, then he or she can reach out to the Grievance Redressal Committee.
“It shall be considered by the Grievance Redressal Committee on case-to-case basis,” the Centre said. “If it is found by the Grievance Redressal Committee that a particular claimant could not make the claim within the stipulated time which was beyond their control, his or her case may be considered on merits.”
Claims will be processed and the actual payment will be completed within a period of 30 days from the date the application is received, the order added.
The Supreme Court also directed the Centre to do a random check of 5% of the total claim amount in the first instance.
“If it is found that anybody has made a fake claim, the same shall be considered under Section 52 of the DM [Disaster Management] Act, 2005 and liable to be punished accordingly,” the Centre said.
Under Section 52 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005, any person found to be falsely claiming relief can be sentenced to prison for up to two years and is punishable with a fine.
On March 14, a bench of Justices MR Shah and BC Nagarathna had observed that an inquiry was needed to investigate the possible misuse of the Covid-19 compensation.
“We never visualised that this kind of fake claims could come,” the bench had said. “It’s a pious world. We never thought this scheme could be misused.”
It then allowed the Centre to move an application for an investigation into these fake claims.
On March 21, the Centre had informed the Supreme Court that four states – Maharashtra, Kerala, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh – had reported the highest number of fake Covid ex-gratia compensation claims.
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