The Supreme Court will deliver its judgment today, June 30, in petitions seeking directions to the Centre to provide ex-gratia compensation of Rs 4 lakh each to families of people who lost their lives to Covid-19.

In an affidavit filed in the court, the Centre had said that the compensation could not be paid as it would exhaust the disaster relief funds and the disaster management law mandates that relief applies only to natural disasters.

According to  reports, a three-judge bench led by Justices Ashok Bhushan, Vineet Saran and M.R. Shah will pronounce their verdict through video conferencing in the pleas filed by Advocates Gaurav Kumar Bansal and Reepak Kansal.

The centre in its 183-page affidavit which reads:- “If ex-gratia of Rs 4 lakh is given for every person who loses life due to Covid-19, the entire amount of SDRF may possibly be spent on this item alone, and indeed the total expenditure may go up further."

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