Kin of pvt docs who died of Covid entitled to PM insurance cover: SC

The families of doctors who died while doing their duties during the Covid-19 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-19 in 2020. The insurance company rejected her claim under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package (PMGKP) on the grounds that her husband’s clinic was not recognised as a Covid-19 hospital. The HC order was challenged before the top court.

“Given the situation as it stood in March 2020, and the invocation of the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, along with the 2020 Regulations, there can be no doubt that governments and their agencies were compelled to requisition the services of doctors and other health professionals to frontline duties to contain the rapidly spreading infection,” the top court said.

The Bench added that it was easy to envisage circumstances in which issuing individual appointment or requisition letters was not possible, which was precisely why the Epidemic Diseases Act and the 2020 Regulations were invoked to implement immediate measures. The court had earlier observed: “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-19 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 March 31, 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 person lost his life while performing a Covid-19-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 offices or agencies concerned 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.