In a writ petition filed before the Bombay High Court to challenge an order dated 15-09-2022 passed by the District Collector, Ahmednagar, whereby the claim of the petitioner for being eligible to receive the insurance amount of Rs. 50,00,000/- under the Prime Minister’s Garib Kalyan Yojna, a Division Bench of Justice Arun R. Pedneker and Justice Vaishali Patil-Jadhav quashed the impugned order and directed the District Collector to forward the petitioner’s claim by holding that the deceased wife was COVID positive at the relevant time.
The petitioner’s deceased wife was working as a nurse (Arogya Sevika) since 1993 in the Civil Hospital, Ahmednagar, and she died during the COVID period on 05-05-2021 while performing her duty. The claim of the petitioner under the Garib Kalyan Yojna Scheme, which was declared for the family members of corona warriors, doctors, and health workers who died due to COVID, was rejected on the ground that he had not submitted the RTPCR report showing that the deceased was COVID positive at the time of her demise.
Since despite various representations to the authority concerned, the petitioner was denied the benefit of the Scheme, he filed a writ petition before this Court, whereby the District Collector was directed to decide the petitioner’s claim within four months. Thereafter, the petitioner’s claim was rejected.
The Court noted that even though there is no RTPCR certificate showing that the deceased wife was COVID positive at the time of her death, her medical certificate for cause of death showed that she died due to cardio-respiratory failure as a consequence of ARDS B/L pneumonitis and being COVID positive. It was stated that the petitioner’s claim could not be rejected merely because he could not submit such a lab report.
The Court perused the death certificate as well as the CT scan report and found them to be overwhelming evidence. Regarding a previous RTPCR report of the deceased wife present on the record, which indicated that she had tested negative for COVID earlier, it was said that the same could not be the sole criterion to decide whether the reason for the deceased’s death was COVID.
The Court referred to various decisions and opined that the rejection by the District Collector could not be accepted, while quashing and setting aside the impugned order. Further, the Collector was also directed to forward the petitioner’s claim to the authority concerned by holding that the deceased wife was COVID positive at the time of her demise.
The Court directed the authorities to decide the petitioner’s claim within eight weeks while allowing the petition.
Appearances:
For Petitioner – Mr. R.A. Tambe, Ms. Pooja Patare
For Respondents – Mr. R.R. Bangar, Mr. G.A. Kulkarni (AGP), Mr. A.D. Adhav
