New Delhi, Sep 13 (PTI) A contempt plea has been filed on Monday in the Supreme Court accusing the Centre of wilful disobedience of apex court's June 30, 2021 order to frame guidelines for ex-gratia compensation to families of those who died of COVID-19.

The contempt plea submitted that the Centre did not fully comply with the judgement and filed a partial compliance report.

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The plea filed by advocate Reepak Kansal alleged that the contemnors have failed to comply with the apex court's order on compensation to the family of victims who died due to corona.

The top court in its order had said," “We direct the National Disaster Management Authority to recommend guidelines for ex gratia assistance on account of loss of life to the family members of the persons who died due to COVID-19, as mandated under Section 12(iii) of DMA 2005 for the minimum standards of relief to be provided to the persons affected by disaster – COVID- 19 Pandemic, over and above the guidelines already recommended for the minimum standards of relief to be provided to persons affected by COVID-19."

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The plea submitted that despite having knowledge of the aforesaid order, "the contemnors herein sat tight over the issue and have been maintaining an angelic silence regarding securing compliance of the aforesaid solemn order".

"It is submitted that the contemnors have wilfully, deliberately and contumaciously disobeyed, defied and violated the solemn order & judgement dated June 30, 2021 passed by the Supreme Court in Writ Petition (C) No. 544/2021 titled as Reepak Kansal VsUnion of India," the plea said.

Kansal stated that the time of six weeks granted by the top court expired on September 11 and there is no application seeking extension of time.

In its June 30 verdict, the top court had also ordered steps to simplify guidelines for issuance and correction of “death certificates/official documents, stating the exact cause of death, that is, 'Death due to COVID-19'” for enabling dependents to get benefits of welfare schemes.

The top court's verdict had come on two separate pleas filed by lawyers Reepak Kansal and Gaurav Kumar Bansal seeking directions to the Centre and the states to provide Rs four lakh compensation to the families of coronavirus victims as provisioned under the Act.

Four intervenors, who had lost their family members due to COVID have also moved the top court through advocate Sumeer Sodhi contending that there cannot be any discrimination in the amounts being paid by different states to family members of those, who had succumbed to the deadly infection.

The apex court in its verdict, however, had noted the “peculiarity and the impact and effect” of the pandemic and said that it cannot order payment of Rs 4 lakh as ex-gratia compensation which should be decided by the NDMA as there was a need to “focus simultaneously on prevention, preparedness, mitigation and recovery, which calls for a different order of mobilization of both financial and technical resources”.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)