NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court expressed displeasure on Wednesday with the delay in paying compensation to families of people who died of Covid-19, and asked the chief secretaries of Andhra Pradesh and Bihar to attend in court at 2 p.m.
The court, which consists of Justice M.R. Shah and Sanjiv Khanna, has repeatedly told state governments not to delay compensating victims' relatives, yet there has been a delay, indicating that the involved authorities are not taking its orders seriously.
The state government received nearly 36,000 applications for Covid compensation in Andhra Pradesh, according to the bench, but just 11,000 applicants have received compensation so far. "Not providing payment to the qualifying claimants would be disobedience of our earlier order...", the bench concluded. The court ordered the Andhra Pradesh counsel to summon the chief secretary at 2:00 p.m. to show cause why contempt proceedings should not be instituted. The panel stated that it is unwilling to accept that only 12,000 people died in Bihar as a result of Covid.
"We want the truth. Except in Bihar, the number of people has increased in all other states after our order r "The bench took notice. The state government counsel was instructed by the high court to request the presence of the state's chief secretary.
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