The Centre on Monday said the Supreme Court, in an order dated March 24, had fixed timelines to file the claims for the compensation of Covid-19 deaths. For deaths that occurred prior to March 20, the claims have to be filed within 60 days, while for any future deaths, 90 days’ time has been given to file for the ex gratia.
An earlier order to process the claims and to make the actual payment of compensation within a period of 30 days from the date of receipt of the claim shall continue to be enforced.The court, however, directed that in case of extreme hardship where any claimant could not make an application within the time prescribed, it will be open for the claimant to approach the Grievance Redressal Committee and make the claim through the panel which shall be considered on case to case basis, and if it is found by the committee that a particular claimant could not make the claim within the stipulated time may be considered on merits, the government said.Moreover, the court also directed that in a bid to minimise the risk of fake claims, a random scrutiny of 5 per cent of the claim applications shall be made at the first instance. If it is found that anybody has made a fake claim, the same shall be considered under Section 52 of the DM Act, 2005 and liable to be punished accordingly.
With 861 fresh cases, India’s Covid-19 tally has climbed to 4,30,36,132, while the death count due to the disease has gone up to 5,21,691 with six more fatalities, the Union health ministry said on Monday.However, the number of active cases of the infection has further declined to 11,058. The active cases account for 0.03 per cent of the total caseload, while the national recovery rate remained at 98.76 per cent.A reduction of 74 cases was recorded in the active caseload in a span of 24 hours.
