The Supreme Court has held that filing of fake Covid Claims is a criminal offence under Section 52 of Disaster Management Act, 2005.
The Division Bench comprising of Justice MR Shah and Justice BV Nagarathna has observed that nobody can be permitted to avail the ex-gratia compensation by making a false claim and/or submitting the false certificate.
The Court noted:
"Earlier, this Court passed the order directing the Union of India/NDMA/concerned States to pay ex-gratia amount keeping in mind the humanity and keeping in mind the sufferings of the family members who lost one of their family members due to COVID-19. Therefore, nobody can be permitted to misuse the same and it is also against morality and is unethical, which can never be accepted."
In view of the above, the Court allowed a random scrutiny of the 5% of the claim applications filed in the States of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala and Maharashtra.
"The concerned States are directed to assist in carrying out the scrutiny of the claim applications as ordered above and submit all the necessary particulars of the respective claims that have been attended/processed to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, who shall carry out the scrutiny within a period of three months from today and submit the report before this Court. If it is found that anybody has made a fake claim, the same shall be considered under Section 52 of the Act, 2005 and liable to be punished accordingly."
Additionally, on the instance of Central Govt, theCourt has set an outer limit of 60 days to file claims for ex-gratia compensation of COVID-19 deaths occurred prior to 20.03.2022 and a period of 90 days has been determined to be proper to file a claim for compensation.
Read Order Here:
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