New Delhi: In a landmark verdict that brings long-overdue justice to Covid warriors, the Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that every doctor, nurse, ASHA worker, and healthcare staffer who died while on active Covid-19 duty is entitled to ₹50 lakh in ex-gratia compensation under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package (PMGKY), even if death occurred due to the virus weeks after exposure.
A bench of Justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan pulled up the Union government for its “narrow and pedantic” interpretation that restricted claims only to deaths within a rigid timeline. “The nation salutes these frontline warriors. The court observed that the Centre should process all pending and rejected claims within six weeks, ensuring that death certificates explicitly mention on Covid duty.”
The ruling came on a clutch of petitions filed by kin of deceased healthcare workers whose claims were rejected because the death certificate cited “Covid-19” without adding the magic phrase “while on Covid duty”.
The court declared these technical denials illegal and instructed the government to independently identify eligible families using hospital records and district-level committees.
Over 2,200 claims are still pending across the states, with Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh topping the list of rejections. Petitioner-advocates hailed the order as a “Diwali gift delayed by five years” for grieving families who lost breadwinners at the peak of the pandemic.
The centre has been asked to widely publicise the simplified claim process and set up a dedicated portal within a month.