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The Supreme Court on Thursday said that the Gujarat Government has attempted to overreach its order while appointing an scrutiny Committee for allowing ex-gration compensation to the families of persons died of Covid.

A bench of Justice MR Shah and Justice BV Nagarathna noted "There was no requirement at all of constituting the Scrutiny Committee for the purpose of awarding the compensation."

Earlier, the Court had approved the centre’s proposal that the next of kin of the people who died of COVID-19 shall be paid an amount of Rs 50,000, over and above the amounts paid by centre and state under various benevolent schemes.

Whereas, through its notification dated October 29 the Gujarat Government had appointed scrutiny committee for which the Court said is just contrary to the directions issued by this Court in order date October 4.

The bench noted that "There was no requirement at all of constituting the Scrutiny Committee for the purpose of awarding the compensation. The direction was to constitute the Grievance Redressal Committee in case the compensation is not paid and the family members are aggrieved and/or they are aggrieved with respect to the death certificate issued."

The Court also observed that its order was very clear that the amount of compensation to be paid on production of RT-PCR certificate and the death certificate showing that the death has occurred within 30 day.

Whereas, there was no further requirement "It was very much made clear that even in a case where in the death certificate the cause is not shown as death due to COVID but if found that the deceased was declared positive with COVID-19 and he has died within 30 days, automatically, his/her family members are entitled to the compensation without any further conditions," the Court opined.

The bench further noted that even the procedure for compensation should be simplified and the form should be very simple and should not be a clumsy.

However, the Court has kept the matter for November 22 asking Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to take remedial steps so that the amount as ordered reaches the victims at the earliest.

Cause Title: Gaurav Kumar Bansal v. Union of India