New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday ruled that there is no difficulty in letting the Delhi government's HPC (High Powered Committee) probe whether deaths occurred due to oxygen shortage during the second wave of the pandemic as long as it is for the sole purpose of providing compensation — to be borne entirely by the Delhi government, does not overlap the role of the SC-appointed committee on oxygen demand, and does not fix fault-based liability on hospitals.
The bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Jasmeet Singh was dealing with a plea to operationalise the HPC, filed by Riti Singh Verma, who said her husband (with no co-morbidities) was admitted to a private hospital for Covid and passed away on May 14 due to cardiac arrest without a detailed explanation for the death in the discharge summary. She prayed for compensation and the operationalisation of the HPC.
The Delhi government noted in court that it would not attribute fault to any hospital and it would be for compensation alone — to be borne entirely by it. It added that the criteria for determining compensation will be open to scrutiny and the HPC's task would not overlap with that of the SC-appointed sub-group.
"In light of the aforesaid, we see no difficulty in the HPC constituted by GNCTD in discharging its assigned role," the bench said, adding that it was not necessary to await the order of the Supreme Court in relation to the grant of ex gratia compensation in terms of guidelines issued by National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).
"The intent of the GNCTD in issuing the May 27 order (on constitution of HPC) is not to grant ex gratia amount to COVID19 victim. A perusal of the order would show that the purpose is to examine each complaint/ representation received by the committee in relation to the death of a COVID-19 patient due to lack of oxygen... We do not think it is necessary for us to await the order of the Supreme Court with regards grant of ex gratia compensation to be paid to a victim as decided by NDMA," the court stated.
The court clarified that in case an amount larger than what is being paid presently as ex gratia compensation is fixed by the NDMA, the same would also be payable to the victim.
The bench went on to record that after keeping its decision to constitute an HPC in abeyance, the Delhi government has expressed its intention to reinstate it, however, due to the difference in opinion (with regards the scope of its mandate) between the council of ministers and the LG, the stalemate is continuing.
Senior counsel Rahul Mehra and lawyer Gautam Narayan, representing the Delhi government, said compensation of up to Rs 5 lakh would be calculated by the HPC on the basis of an objective criteria decided by it, which would be open to a challenge by any party.
The lawyers distinguished the compensation awarded by HPC from ex gratia compensation of Rs 50,000 already being paid by the Delhi government.
Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain, representing the Lieutenant governor, urged the court to defer passing any order in relation to the constitution to HPC and await guidelines for uniform ex gratia from
the NDMA after the apex court's order. The Delhi government maintained that there was no lawful justification for the Lieutenant Governor to object to the constitution of the HPC.
"We respect the court's direction and are grateful for the same. The Delhi Government has been serious
about the deaths in the capital due to lack of oxygen during the Corona pandemic. The Delhi government wants the truth to come out in front of everyone. We sent the file in this regard twice to the LG but surprisingly he refused to give his nod. Finally, today the court has upheld the stance of the Delhi government," the Delhi government said in a statement.