Pvt docs who worked during Covid and died entitled to govt aid: SC

The Supreme Court ruled that private doctors who died from Covid-19 while working during the pandemic qualify as frontline workers for ₹50-lakh insurance.

New Delhi

Pvt docs who worked during Covid and died entitled to govt aid: SC

Underlining that “the courage and sacrifice of our doctors remain indelible,” the Supreme Court on Thursday held that even private practitioners who kept their clinics open during the Covid-19 pandemic and later succumbed to the infection must be treated as frontline workers “requisitioned” by the State, and therefore eligible for the ₹50-lakh insurance under the Centre’s Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package (PMGKP).

A bench of justices PS Narasimha and R Mahadevan rejected the Union government’s narrow interpretation that only those formally “drafted” or “requisitioned” by state or central authorities could claim the benefit. The court said the government’s own laws, regulations and executive actions during the early months of the pandemic made it clear that authorities had invoked emergency powers to draw upon all available medical professionals, including those in private practice, to keep essential healthcare functioning during the national health crisis.

“The courage and sacrifice of our doctors remain indelible, as five years following the pandemic that spared us, we are now called upon to interpret the laws and regulations enacted for the urgent requisition of doctors and health professionals,” noted the court, adding that the PMGKP scheme was “intended to assure doctors and health professionals on the frontline that the country is with them.”

The ruling is a major relief for families of several private doctors whose compensation claims were rejected for want of a formal requisition order -- a position earlier upheld by the Bombay High Court. The present case involved five widows of Maharashtra-based doctors.

Recounting the extraordinary circumstances at the “dawn of 2020”, the bench noted that the pandemic was unprecedented in scale since the 1918 influenza outbreak, killing millions worldwide and exposing the fragilities of healthcare systems everywhere. The Indian Medical Association’s registry recorded 748 doctor deaths in the first wave alone, with several more during the devastating second wave.

In that chaos, the court said, the State turned to a battery of special legal instruments -- the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897; nationwide lockdown regulations; and state-specific rules such as Maharashtra’s Prevention and Containment of Covid-19 Regulations, 2020, all of which empowered authorities to requisition doctors, seal medical establishments, enforce operations of clinics, and penalise non-compliance.

“Taking into account the live situation that existed as on March 2020, coupled with the invocation of the Epidemic Diseases Act and the Regulations of 2020, there cannot be any doubt about the compelling situation in which governments requisitioned the services of as many doctors as possible,” the bench held. “It is not difficult to conceive the situation in which individual letters of appointment or requisitioning would not have been possible,” it added.

The bench emphasised that the Finance Ministry’s March 26, 2020 press release and the PMGKP’s launch two days later clearly signalled that the insurance cover was meant for all frontline health workers “requisitioned by law or executive action”, extending to private doctors, hospital staff, technicians and volunteers.

The government’s FAQs and clarificatory letter dated April 3, 2020, the court added, reinforced that the scheme was designed to cast a wide protective net, not a restrictive one.

“We are not inclined to accept the rather simplistic submission that there was no specific requisition and therefore the claim must fail,” said the court, adding that the scheme could not be divorced from the circumstances of its birth. “The country has not forgotten the situation that prevailed at the onset of Covid-19, when every citizen contributed in some measure, despite fear of infection or imminent death,” it emphasised.

The judgment modifies the Bombay High Court’s decision by declaring that requisition did take place as a matter of law, and that individual claims must now be assessed on evidence of two factors – First, whether the doctor had offered services during Covid, and second, whether the death occurred due to Covid-19. The onus to show these facts remains on the claimant.

Thursday’s ruling reflected the strong sentiments the bench had expressed during hearings in October, when it warned that the country “may not forgive the Supreme Court” if it failed to stand by doctors who laid down their lives during the pandemic.