The Centre has told the Supreme Court that some unscrupulous persons are using fake documents to get Covid death compensation and sought direction from the court to allow its agency to undertake sample scrutiny of the documents filed along with claim applications to catch the culprits.

In an application filed by the ministry of home affairs, the Centre said that the connivance of the local level officers appointed to clear the claims could not be ruled out in the illegal rackets to obtain ex-gratia payment on forged documents, which needed to be probed.

“Reports have been received by the central government as well as by the state governments regarding fake/forged claims being submitted by some unscrupulous persons. It is submitted that though this court, considering the pain and plight of the family members of persons who lost their lives due to Covid- 19 infection, on sympathetic, benevolent and humanitarian grounds had directed expeditious payment of the ex-gratia payments to the next of kin of the Covid-19 victims, on production of documents mentioned in court’s order. However, in absence of any verification and scrutiny of the claim forms, some unscrupulous persons in the society started realising such ex-gratia payments on the basis of forged and fake claim documents,” the application said.

It pleaded the court to modify its order passed last year for “permitting any central agency to undertake a sample scrutiny to verify the claimed documents processed by respective State Governments for grant of ex gratia payment and take steps thereafter in accordance with the law". The Centre also submitted that a time limit of four weeks be set for the existing eligible claimants to lodge their claims with the authorities for grant of ex-gratia payment and a time of four weeks be also fixed for claimants who might become eligible in the future.

The court on the last hearing had indicated that it may press the comptroller and auditor general (CAG) into service to catch those who used fake certificates for getting Covid death compensation after it was pointed out by the Centre that its order was being misused to claim the benefit. The court will examine and pass the order on the issue on Monday.

As per the compilation of data placed before the SC, over six lakh people have been disbursed the compensation amount of Rs 50,000 each against around eight lakh applications filed, which is far more than the official death figures given by different states. The largest number of applications was rejected by the Maharashtra government which refused compensation to 68,069 out of the total number of 2,41,088 applications it received. For Maharashtra, the official death toll is 1,42,705 and it paid compensation to 1,58,296 families.

(With inputs from agencies)