The Delhi High Court on Monday granted a major relief to the family of a school principal who died of COVID-19 but was denied compensation after the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party government kept his death out of the scope of 'Scope Duty'.
The Delhi High Court also directed the government to pay an ex gratia compensation of Rs 1 crore to the family of the deceased, Dr Raja Ram Singh. The verdict on March 27 brought justice for the family after a wait of 1,763 days.
What's Dr Raja Ram Singh's case?
During the corona pandemic, the then Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had announced a policy, the Corona Warrior Martyr Scheme, to compensate the families of frontline workers who died of the virus, with Rs 1 crore.
The Delhi Cabinet approved the policy in April 2020. The definition of such martyrs included teachers, police, civil defence volunteers, and sanitation workers. Back then, Dr Singh was posted as Vice Principal of the Government Boys Senior Secondary School in Sangam Vihar.
He contracted COVID-19 on May 29, 2021, while supervising a Hunger Relief Centre set up by the District Magistrate under the Delhi government's Mukhya Corona Sahayata Yojana. However, in November 2023, the Group of Ministers (GoM), appointed by the AAP govt rejected his family's claim to compensation, calling it a 'routine duty' and not 'COVID duty'.
What did the Delhi HC say?
The Delhi High Court found this distinction between Covid and Routine duty to be legally flawed in Dr Singh's case. The court observed the Deputy Director of Education had confirmed that Dr Singh was regularly attending school and performing his duties. The court also cited two earlier rulings, in the Ram Dulari and Narendra Kumar cases, where the denial was rejected, and compensation was ordered.
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The Lead Counsel, arguing on behalf of Dr Singh's widow, Advocate Prafulla said, "This is a social welfare scheme it was designed to give relief, not to be dissected word by word until it covers nobody. Welfare schemes must be read broadly, in the spirit in which they were conceived. The moment you start squeezing them into rigid, narrow definitions, you have already defeated the purpose. The government cannot announce a scheme for martyrs and then hide behind a dictionary when the martyrs' families come to claim it."
Advocate Abhishek Kumar, who was also associated with the case, said, "What this series of judgments reveals is a systematic pattern- the Government was not evaluating claims on merit; it was applying a filter that had no basis in the Cabinet Decision's text or stated purpose. A DTC driver, a safai karamchari, a school principal- three very different roles, one identical rejection. That is not adjudication; that is a policy of denial. The Court has now closed that door, but the question of how many families never made it to court remains unanswered."