The Madras High Court on Thursday directed the State government to ensure that family members or legal heirs of all those who died of COVID-19 are issued proper death certificates or appropriate documents mentioning the correct cause of death so that they can claim the consequential benefits without any hitch.
Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy issued the direction after taking into account a Supreme Court judgment delivered on June 30.
In the verdict, the top court had insisted upon simplifying the process of issuing death certificates and ordered the issuance of guidelines in that regard.
Direction to States
“So far as the prayer to issue appropriate directions to State governments to issue an official document stating COVID-19 as the cause of death to family members of the deceased is concerned, it is the duty of every authority to issue accurate/correct death certificates stating the correct/accurate cause of death,” the Supreme Court ordered.
The court had further ordered that the procedure for issuing death certificates be simplified and appropriate guidelines be issued for the issuance of an official document or a death certificate, indicating “the exact cause of death, i.e., death due to COVID-19”.
The Supreme Court had also impressed upon the need to create a mechanism to redress the grievances of families who had already obtained death certificates that do not indicate COVID-19 as the cause of death.
After extracting the Supreme Court order, the first Division Bench, led by the Chief Justice Banerjee, ordered that State governments take appropriate steps to implement the verdict.
