Covid death compensation, Supreme Court fixes 60 days window to claim it

From March 24, an outer time limit of 60 days has been fixed to file claims for compensation in case of death due to Covid-19 prior to March 20, 2022, The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said on Wednesday.

In future, a timeframe of 90 days would be provided from the date of death due to Covid-19 to file the compensation.

Based on directions from the Supreme Court, the Disaster Management Authority in a notice said the 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 claim would continue to be enforced. In case of extreme hardship where a claimant could not make an application within the time prescribed, it would be open for the claimant to approach the Grievance



Redressal Committee and make the claim through the Committee on a case-to-case basis.

If it was found by the Grievance Redressal Committee that a particular claimant could not make the claim within the stipulated time which was beyond their control, then their claim can be considered on merits.

In a bid to minimize the risk of fake claims, a random scrutiny of five per cent of claim applications would be taken up. If it was found that anybody made a fake claim, the same would be considered under Section 32 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005 and liable for punishment accordingly, the notification said.

The complete order of the Supreme Court is available at https://ndma.gov.in