COVID-19: Centre, Delhi govt granted more time to respond on minors' plea for compensation
Jul 29, 2021
New Delhi [India], July 29 : The Delhi High Court on Thursday granted more time to the Centre, the Delhi Government and others to file a reply to a petition seeking to provide compensation or any schemes for families who have minor children and have lost the sole bread earner due to oxygen shortage after being infected with COVID-19 during the second wave of the disease in April-May.
A single-judge bench of Justice Rekha Palli granted three weeks more time to respondents to file replies on the petition filed by minor Yasmin and Ruben Kataria and listed it for August 26.
Two minor children, through her mother, have filed a petition through advocates Bharat Malhotra and Siddhant Sethi.
The petitioner has sought compensation or any other entitled remedy under the law for the untimely and preventable death of their father, who died due to COVID-19 infections and oxygen shortage in a hospital.
"The father of the petition was admitted in a hospital after being infected with COVID-19 virus and died due to lack of oxygen in the hospital. Therefore, the petitioner has sought expeditiously implementation of the various schemes, if any, as floated by the Centre or Delhi government to provide the compensation coupled with monthly sustenance allowance to bereaved solo earning single parent and to provide free education to their children's and a monthly stipend to the families, who lost the sole earning member of a family on account due to lack of supply of oxygen," the plea said.
The petitioner urged the court to issue direction to authorities concerned to announce and expeditiously implement the schemes, for children like petitioners, who are studying in private schools and have lost their sole bread earning parent/family member due to lack of oxygen supply or due to Covid and further respondents should be directed to bear all the educational expenses of the petitioners in the interest of justice, it said.
The petitioner also sought to ensure that there should not be any kind of prejudice to the right of petitioner's education in the respondent school on account of non-payment of fees.
