New Delhi

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the families of doctors who lost their lives while performing COVID-19 duties are entitled to an insurance benefit of ₹50 lakh under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY).

A bench comprising Justices P S Narasimha and R Mahadevan overturned a 2021 Bombay High Court ruling which had held that private medical practitioners were not covered under the central government’s insurance package.

According to the bench, various legal provisions and official orders issued during the pandemic — including the Maharashtra Prevention and Containment of COVID-19 Regulations, 2020, and a March 31, 2020 order of the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation — demonstrated that medical professionals, whether from public or private institutions, were formally requisitioned for pandemic-related duties. This, the court said, made them eligible for protection under the PMGKY insurance scheme.

The judges observed that the extraordinary measures undertaken during the pandemic were aimed at mobilising all available medical resources, and the insurance package was designed to reassure frontline health workers that the nation stood behind them.

The court clarified that each insurance claim filed under PMGKY must be evaluated on merit. The responsibility to establish that a doctor died while performing COVID-related duties rests with the claimant, who must present credible evidence supporting the claim.

The ruling came in response to a petition filed by Pradeep Arora and others challenging the Bombay High Court’s March 9, 2021 decision that denied PMGKY coverage to private hospital staff unless the government had formally requisitioned their services.

The original plea before the high court was filed by Kiran Bhaskar Surgade, whose husband — a private practitioner with a clinic in Thane — succumbed to COVID-19 in 2020. Her insurance claim was rejected on the ground that his clinic was not designated as a COVID facility.

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Launched in March 2020, the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package was designed to support frontline health workers and ensure financial security for their families in the event of a COVID-related death. The scheme provides an insurance cover of ₹50 lakh and has since become a key safety net for families of healthcare workers who died due to the virus.