NEW DELHI, India — The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that families of private doctors and health professionals who died while carrying out Covid-19 duties are entitled to benefits under the Centre’s Rs 50 lakh insurance scheme, rejecting arguments that such workers must have been formally “requisitioned” to qualify.
The decision came in an appeal filed by the widow of Dr. B.S. Surgade, a private practitioner who died of Covid-19 in June 2020 after continuing to keep his clinic open during the nationwide lockdown. The Bombay High Court had earlier denied her claim under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana Package (PMGKY), finding that Dr. Surgade’s work was not officially designated as Covid duty.
A bench of Justices P.S. Narasimha and R. Mahadevan overturned that judgment, holding that families of doctors and health workers cannot be deprived of benefits based on a “hyper-technical” interpretation of requisition requirements. The Court said that the extraordinary conditions during the pandemic’s early months must be understood in context, not reduced to the demand for formal appointment letters.
Citing the Centre’s order launching the PMGKY insurance scheme and municipal directives requiring dispensaries to remain open, the bench said the regulatory framework “was intended to leave no stone unturned in requisitioning the doctors,” and that the insurance program was designed to reassure frontline health workers that the country “is with them.”
While rejecting a narrow test for requisitioning, the Court clarified that eligibility under the PMGKY scheme remains case-specific. “Once we have decided that there was a ‘requisition’, the applicability of the insurance policy will then depend upon actual evidence. If there is clear evidence that the deceased lost his life while performing Covid-19-related duties, the policy will have to be applied,” the bench said.
The justices emphasized that they were ruling only on the legal question of requisition and not on the credibility of individual claims, which must be evaluated by the relevant authorities. The claimant, they added, bears the burden of proving that the deceased died while performing Covid-related duties, “on the basis of credible evidence.”
In its judgment, the Court acknowledged the immense strain placed on healthcare systems worldwide during the pandemic. Despite the unprecedented pressure, the bench observed, “Our doctors and health professionals rose as unwavering heroes, turning challenges into courage.” (Source: IANS)
