An outer scrutinize of Bombay High Court.
| Describe Credit score: The Hindu
The Kolhapur Bench of the Bombay High Court on Tuesday (December 23, 2025) directed the Maharashtra government to grant the ₹50 lakh ex gratia insurance protection profit to the family of a contractual data entry operator who died of COVID-19 after serving on pandemic responsibility, ruling that the date of contracting the an infection—no longer the date of death—would possibly well simply silent resolve eligibility below the blueprint.
A Division Bench of Justices M.S. Karnik and Ajit B. Kadethankar quashed a Can also simply 24, 2022 allege of the Public Correctly being Division rejecting the negate of petitioner Ramesh Balu Patil, whose essential other Sarita Patil died on July 4, 2021. The Dispute had denied the profit on the bottom that the blueprint became operational easiest till June 30, 2021.
Petitioner’s counsel N.B. Khaire argued that Sarita Patil shrunk COVID-19 while discharging unswerving tasks at a Essential Correctly being Centre below the Nationwide Rural Correctly being Mission, “It is no longer in dispute that late Sarita Ramesh Patil became within the service of Dispute Authorities and became discharging tasks touching on Covid patients when she suffered Covid an infection. Though she expired after thirtieth June 2021, she became contaminated sooner than that date. The blueprint is benevolent and would possibly well simply no longer be applied with technical rigidity.”
Opposing the plea, Assistant Authorities Pleader (AGP) Tejas J. Kapre contended, “The insurance protection duvet and ex gratia assistance became a blueprint introduced and made operational for a explicit length easiest. Confining the blueprint to that length is a policy resolution of the Dispute Authorities. The authority fervent became justified in discarding the petitioner’s negate.”
Rejecting the Dispute’s stand, the Bench seen, “It is no longer the date of death, however the date of contracting Covid-19 an infection which is cloth for grant of insurance protection protection below the Authorities Dedication dated twenty ninth Can also simply 2020 learn with Authorities Dedication dated 14th Can also simply 2021.”
On the Dispute’s argument that contractual staff had been excluded, the judges acknowledged, “Agony and fret of members of the family of a Covid fighter are the identical, whatever the persona of employment. Discarding a negate on the bottom that the deceased employee became merely an outsourced contractual employee would defeat the very cause of the blueprint.”
The court invoked constitutional principles of fairness and societal gratitude, “To impart or restrict the reduction to of us that passed away after thirtieth June 2021 would possibly well per chance be opposite to the values of justice, fairness, and dignity which animate our constitutional allege, and furthermore opposite to public judgment of appropriate and flawed and societal gratitude.”
It additional harassed out the fitting crucial within the abet of the blueprint, “The hardships faced by these staff and their households in some unspecified time in the future of the pandemic had been expansive and deserve recognition beyond mere symbolic gestures. Monetary advantages granted through a beneficiant interpretation of the GR provide tangible reduction to these households.”
The judges added, “Nature of service of a Covid fighter who dies while on responsibility ensuing from Covid an infection is immaterial to narrate the advantages of insurance protection blueprint to the members of the family of such employee. The Dispute must act with sensitivity in direction of of us which bask in suffered and must no longer enable procedural rigidity to eclipse substantive justice.”
The court directed the Dispute and the Correctly being Division to course of and free up the profit within eight weeks, with assistance from the District Correctly being Officer, Kolhapur.
Published – December 24, 2025 03:55 am IST
