SC slams delay in Covid death certificates rules
Two-judge bench in top court tells Centre to file a compliance report by Sept 11
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday pulled up the Centre over delay in framing guidelines for issuing death certificates to families of those who lost their lives due to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), news agency PTI reported. A two-judge bench, comprising Justice MR Shah and Justice Aniruddha Bose, directed the Union government to file a compliance report by September 11.
“We passed the order long time back, and have already extended the time once. By the time you frame the guidelines, the third phase will be over as well,” the bench observed. It was referring to its June 30 order directing the appropriate authority to simplify the guidelines to issue death certificates which, it had said, should state the exact cause of death as “death due to Covid-19” to enable those who depended on the deceased to avail benefits of welfare schemes.
Appearing for the central government, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta assured the top court that “everything is under consideration.” However, advocate Gaurav Kumar Bansal, who is one of the petitioners, argued that under the pretext of consideration, things should not be delayed further as the Centre was already granted a 4-week extension on August 16, but is now seeking further extension.
Advocate Sumeer Sodhi, who appeared for some other applicants, argued that the extension for the first direction, passed on June 30, was ending on September 8. On this, the bench said it was adjourning the matter only for compliance with other directions.
“Put up on September 13 as the Solicitor General seeks time to enable the Union of India to comply with the earlier order and place on record the compliance report of other directions placed by this court on June 30, 2021, on or before September 11,” it said.
The apex court’s primary instructions in the said order were for the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) to come up with guidelines, within six weeks, for ex-gratia assistance of family members of those who died due to Covid-19.
The Centre, however, sought and received extension on the grounds that the NDMA’s consideration in this regard was at an “advanced stage” but required some more in-depth examination.
It was this “extension” that the advocates referred to in the latest hearing in the Supreme Court. The court’s order was on two separate petitions, one each by Bansal and Reepak Kansal. Later, four other intervenors, who lost their family members due to Covid-19, also moved court.
Meanwhile, India on Friday recorded 45,352 new infections taking the tally to 3,29,03,289, while active cases registered an increase for the third consecutive day, according to the Union health ministry data .
India’s official death toll due to the coronavirus disease is currently at 439,895, including 366 fatalities in the last 24 hours.
The active cases increased to 3,99,778 comprising 1.22% of the total infections, while the national Covid-19 recovery rate was recorded at 97.45%, the ministry said. An increase of 10,195 cases has been recorded in the active Covid-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.
As many as 16,66,334 tests were conducted on Thursday taking the total cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of Covid-19 in the country to 52,65,35,068.
The daily positivity rate was recorded 2.72 % and the weekly positivity rate was recorded at 2.66 %. It has been below three per cent for the last 70 days, according to the ministry.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 3,20,63,616, while the case fatality rate stands at 1.34 per cent, the data stated.
A total of over 670 million vaccine doses have been administered so far under the nationwide vaccination drive.
The 366 new fatalities include 188 from Kerala, and 55 from Maharashtra.A total of 4,39,895 deaths have been reported so far in the country including 1,37,551 from Maharashtra, 37,361 from Karnataka, 34,961 from Tamil Nadu, 25,082 from Delhi, 22,841 from Uttar Pradesh, 21,149 from Kerala and 18,472 from West Bengal.