Covid deaths of doctors: Families entitled to Centre’s insurance coverage, rules SC

The families of doctors who died while doing their duties during the Covid pandemic are entitled to the Central Government’s insurance coverage scheme “Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package: Insurance Scheme for Health Workers Fighting COVID-19”, even if they were not formally requisitioned by the Government, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday.

A bench of Justice PS Narasimha and Justice R Mahadevan set aside an order of the Bombay High Court which held that private doctors were not entitled to the Government’s insurance scheme. The high court order had come on a plea filed by Kiran Bhaskar Surgade, whose husband — who ran a private clinic in Thane, died due to Covid in 2020.  The insurance company rejected her claim under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package (PMGKP) on the grounds that her husband’s clinic was not recognised as a Covid hospital. The high court order was challenged before the top court.

“Taking into account the live situation that existed as on March 2020, coupled with the invocation of the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 and the Regulations 2020 thereunder, there cannot be any doubt about the compelling situation in which the Governments and their instrumentalities requisitioned services of doctors and other health professionals to be on the frontline for containing the fast-spreading infection,” the top court said.

“It is not difficult to conceive the situation, in which individual letter of appointment or requisitioning would not have been possible and that exactly the reason for invoking the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 and the Regulation 2020 for implementing immediate measures,” said the bench which had earlier declared that “society will not forgive us if we don’t take care of our doctors and don’t stand for them”.

According to the Indian Medical Association’s Covid registry, 748 doctors died in the first wave and hundreds more in subsequent waves. One estimate noted around 798 doctors lost their lives during the second wave alone.

The bench declared that “there is a requisition of services of doctors, and this is evident from the conjoint reading of provisions of the Act, the Maharashtra Prevention and Containment of Covid-19 Regulations 2020, the NMMC order dated 31.03.2020, PMGKY-Package Scheme, explanatory communication to the PMGKY policy, and the FAQs released”.

The bench, however, said, “Individual claims for insurance made as per the PMGKY-Package will be considered and decided in accordance with the law and on the basis of the evidence. The onus to prove that a deceased lost his life while performing a Covid-related duty is on the claimant, and the same needs to be established on the basis of credible evidence.”

It said, “We are not examining the credibility of individual claims. It is for the concerned offices or agencies to look into individual claims on the basis of clear evidence.”

Announced in March 2020, the PMGKP coverage has been extended since then. An insurance cover of Rs 50 lakh is provided to the health workers under the PMKGP scheme, which has become a safety net for the dependents of the Covid warriors who lost their lives to the infection.