New
Delhi, 22.3.2022, Tuesday
Supreme Court to order random
scrutiny of Covid death claim certificates to nail fakes
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court
on Monday decided to order random scrutiny of Covid death claim applications to
identify those who got compensation with forged documents after the issue was
flagged by the Centre which received complaints from several states. A bench of
Justices MR Shah and BV Nagarathna reserved its order on Centre’s plea for
random checking of documents and said it will pass order on March 23 when it
will also decide which agency will carry out scrutiny.
To start with, random scrutiny
of 5% of claim applications filed in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala and
Maharashtra will be carried out, the bench said. The number of claim
applications were far more than the official Covid toll in these states.
It agreed with the Centre’s
plea that a time period be fixed to file a claim application. Though the Centre
pleaded that a period of four weeks be fixed to apply for compensation, the
court said it was too short and agreed with petitioner Gaurav Kumar Bansal’s
submission that 90 days be given in case of a fresh death due to Covid to file
claim.
Bansal, on whose plea the SC
passed a slew of directions including the granting of 50,000 ex-gratia to
families which lost their dear ones to the pandemic, said that the victim’s
family be first allowed to come out of the grief of loss before applying for
compensation.
As per the compilation of data
placed before the apex court, over six lakh people have been disbursed the
compensation amount of 50,000 each across the country against around eight lakh
applications filed, which is far more than the official death toll figured
provided by the states and Union territories.