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A Supreme Court bench of Justices MR Shah and BV Nagarathna today directed the States to not reject the applications for ex gratia payments of family member of the victims of COVID-19 on "technical grounds".

When the hearing for the matter commenced, a visibly upset Justice MR Shah noted, “We have gathered the information from the legal services authorities. No State has given any particulars, only Statistics is given. This is all. This was not our purpose !”

Justice Shah further called on the Senior Advocate Manisha Lavkumar appearing for Gujarat and and questioned her as to why Gujarat has not provided particulars, Lavkumar assured "Thas to be done! We will do it today.  I will make sure it will be provided today itself!”

The court on hearing the submission noted that “Despite our earlier orders, it appears that most of the States have given only given statistics with respect to applicants and not particulars”  The court further noted that the object of earlier order to give particulars, is to understand that people who have not approached for compensation may be reached to through legal services authorities.

The court further noted that, “Similarly, particulars with respect to to orphans are also not given. We direct all the States to give full particulars to the concerned State legal services authorities including with respect to orphans within 1 week from today. Failing which it will be viewed seriously!”

The court further directed the States to appoint a dedicated officer to coordinate with the LSA to ensure that it reaches eligible persons get the compensation.

The court further noted that if the Member Secretary finds out of the deaths registered, some of the family members are yet to be given compensation they will reach to them through a secretary DLSA/Secrtary Taluka and through Para legal volunteers. The court further noted that their function would be facilitate those people to get compensation and that their role shall be of the ombudsman.

The court noted that from the report  it has obtained it has come to its notice that many States have been rejecting the applications on technical grounds, the court in this regard held that the States shall not rejected on technical grounds. The court further held that if there is a glitch the State must give them to cure it. The  court noted that ultimate goal of a welfare State is to provide some solace to concerned victim’s family.

The court took notice of the fact that many offline applications in the State of Maharashtra are being rejected on technical grounds and noted that as far as Maharashtra 61,00applications are rejected out of 2.27 lakh claims received. Some offline applications are rejected on the grounds that they are defective and that such a rejection is not warranted and it is not called for. The court in conclusion held that the State shall endeavour to make payment to the eligible applicants within 10 days of receipt of the claim.

Case title: Gaurav Bansal Vs Union of India