Pvt doctors too should get ₹50L central aid, says SC

Warning that the country may not forgive the Supreme Court if it fails to stand by doctors who laid down their lives during the Covid-19 pandemic, a bench led by justice PS Narasimha on Tuesday underlined that even private practitioners who kept their clinics open during the pandemic and succumbed to the disease should be entitled to the ₹50-lakh compensation under the Centre’s Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package (PMGKP) insurance scheme.

- Utkarsh Anand

The bench, also comprising justice R Mahadevan, found fault with the Union government's insistence that the benefit was confined to doctors formally requisitioned by state or central authorities. The scheme, introduced on March 28, 2020, under the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF), provided insurance cover to public healthcare workers and private staff “drafted” for Covid responsibilities.

“If they opened their clinics during Covid time, what else were they opening it for? We are proud of our doctors. Hundreds of doctors have passed away. We are a great country where doctors were frontline warriors during Covid and offered their services, risking their lives and health,” the bench

observed, reserving its judgment in the matter.

The court was hearing a plea by five widows of doctors from Maharashtra whose husbands died of Covid-19 but were denied the benefit on the ground that they were not formally requisitioned for Covid duties. The Bombay High Court in March 2021 upheld the government's stand that only those “requisitioned” by the Centre or the state were eligible for the payout.