SC pulls up Andhra Pradesh, Bihar on disbursal of Covid-19 death claims

The Supreme Court on Wednesday pulled up state governments for failing to disburse claims to the next of kin of COVID19 victims and issued a show cause notice to the Andhra Pradesh chief secretary as to why contempt action be not initiated against himThe apex court asked the chief secretaries of Andhra Pradesh and Bihar to remain present virtually at 2 PM on Wednesday and explain why disbursals Rs 50000 ex gratia for COVID19 death have been so few in their statesA bench of Justices M R Shah and Sanjiv Khanna said that it will pass orders at 2 PM and asked the state legal service authorities SLSA to reach the families who have lost their near and dear ones to COVID19 to facilitate registration and disbursal of claims like it was done during the 2001 Gujarat earthquakeThe top court said that it rejects the COVID19 death toll given by Bihar and said that these are not actual but government figuresldquoWe are not going to believe that only 12000 people died in the state of Bihar due to Covid We want your chief secretary to be here virtually at 2 PMrdquo the bench told the counsel appearing for the Bihar governmentThe court was hearing a batch of pleas by advocate Gaurav Kumar Bansal and intervenors represented by advocate Sumeer Sodhi seeking exgratia assistance to family members of COVID19 victimsOn December 13 last year the top court had slammed states for not giving wide publicity about a portal developed for disbursal of exgratia compensation for COVID19 deathsIt had said that unless wide publicity is given people will not be able to know the portal address on which they can make online applicationsThe court had noted that some states have not given wide publicity by giving full details of the portal in advertisements in newspapers particularly in vernacular ones and local channelsThe court had earlier asked the Centre to gather information from states on the progress made on disbursal of exgratia compensation of Rs 50000 to the kin of COVID19 victims and pulled up the Gujarat government for issuing notification constituting a scrutiny committee contrary to its directionsOn November 18 last year the top court had pulled up the Gujarat government for issuing a notification which was just contrary to the directions given regarding exgratia to the next of kin of those who died due to COVID19 and said an attempt has been made to overreach the directions issued by the apex courtIt had said on October 4 last year that no state shall deny exgratia compensation of Rs 50000 to the next of kin of the deceased due to COVID19 solely on the ground that the death certificate does not mention the virus as the cause of deathThe top court had also said that the exgratia is to be disbursed within 30 days from the date of applying to the district disaster management authority or the district administration concerned along with the proof of the death of the deceased due to coronavirus and the cause of death being certified as died due to COVID19It had said that its directions for payment of compensation to the family members of the persons who died due to COVID19 are very clear and there was no requirement at all of constituting the scrutiny committee to award compensationThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever