The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a plea as withdrawn, seeking compensation to families of those who died from Covid-19 due to shortage of oxygen or medicines, wherein Secretaries of all states of the country were made party, reflecting that the deaths during the second wave were due to the negligence of the Government.
A three-judge bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud, Vikram Nath and Hima Kohli observed that the court cannot have a general presumption with respect to each and every death that happened during the second wave of Covid-19 was simply due to the negligence of the government.
The bench observed, “To assume that each and every death was due to negligence is too much to say, the second wave had such an impact across the country that it cannot be presumed that all deaths happened due to negligence, which is visible from this petition”.
Advocate Sriram Parakat, appearing for the petitioner, stated that the prayers in this petition are similar to that of Reepak Kansal versus Union of India and others, wherein directions were laid down to the National Disaster Management Authority to recommend guidelines for ex gratia assistance on account of loss of life to the family members of the persons who died due to Covid-19 on June 30, 2021. However one additional prayer of negligence is also sought for to which the bench iterated that, “we have considered humanitarian ground while providing compensation to the victims. We can’t put forth negligence when granting such amounts for compensation.”
The bench further observed that although the petition has valuable suggestions, the same was filed before the aforementioned judgment and never listed before the court. Even though most of the suggestions were already dealt with during the judgment and also in the suo-moto COVID matter, the bench suggested the petitioner to look into all the orders and development in these matters and come with a modified petition thereby allowing the petitioner to withdraw his petition and raise objections and suggestions before appropriate authority, if any.