A Bench comprising Justice MR Shah and BV Nagarathna said that in case of fake claims of Covid deaths, National Disaster Management Authority should conduct a random survey of 5% of the claims in at least four states say Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Kerala.
On center application that claims should be filed in 4 weeks the Bench of Justice Shah said
If there is a death, then the family would need time to recover from the sorrow and then file claims".
The bench while considering the case Gaurav Kumar Bansal v. Union of India, a Public Interest litigation in which it had earlier approved the ex-gratia amount of Rs 50,000 to be granted in Covid death observed that:
We never imagined that this can be misused also. This is a very pious work and we thought that our morality has not gone so down that in this also here will be some fake claimsif some officers are involved that it is very serious".
On this Solicitor General added that a punishment under section 52 of the National Disaster Management Act, 2005 gives statutory power to punish persons making false claims.
The Bench indicated that it would set a time-limit for 60 days from now for past deaths and 90 days for future deaths. The reserved order can be expected day after tomorrow.
