Deepali Kalia –
A notice was issued by a division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy of the Madras High Court on June 15th to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) on a petition that sought ex gratia payment to families of persons who died due to COVID 19.
This is a significant development as only last week the same bench had stated that mandamus directing all COVID victims be compensated cannot be issued by the Court ,irrespective of the financial situation the families may be in.
“It is a matter of policy for the State to decide whether to give compensation to a class of persons to and to what extent. There is no doubt, diverse classes of people will be seeking compensation and it is a matter within the exclusive domain of the State.” The Court had held.
It was again reiterated by Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee in the hearing that granting of compensation is a matter of State policy.
However, the counsel representing the Petitioner cited 2 judgments of the Apex Court in favor of his case.
The first judgment cited by him of the Top Court ruled that the Guidelines for minimum standards of relief issued under Section 12 of Disaster Management Act have a “statuary force of law”.
The next judgment he referred to was a recent one where the Top court ruled that these Guidelines are applicable to victims of Covid-19.
The Bench then took counsel’s submissions into account and issued notice to NDMA and listed the matter for hearing after four weeks.