CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court has quashed a Rs 50 lakh compensation recommended by the Odisha Human Rights Commission (OHRC) to the family of a Bhubaneswar civic worker, ruling that his duties lacked a direct nexus with Covid-19 management and therefore did not qualify under the state’s “Covid Warrior” scheme. In a single-judge bench of Justice Sanjeeb Kumar Panigrahi passed the judgment recently while considering a petition filed by the state government challenging the OHRC’s May 27, 2024 order granting relief to Sujata Singh, whose husband Sanjib Kumar Das died of Covid-19 in June 2021.Das had been engaged by the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation from May 5 to May 19, 2021, to feed stray animals during the lockdown. The civic body later claimed he was disengaged from May 16. He developed symptoms the next day, tested positive on May 27 and died on June 3.The OHRC had ruled that since Das tested positive within 14 days of his last working day, he fell within the eligibility window and recommended Rs 50 lakh compensation.Setting aside the order on April 17, Justice Panigrahi held that eligibility under the scheme hinges not just on timing but on the nature of duty. “The first mandatory condition… that the individual must have been ‘drafted… to perform Covid-19 related duties,’ is not satisfied,” the Judge said, adding that feeding stray animals, while a civic task, “does not fall within” pandemic-response activities like healthcare, containment or contact tracing. The web copy of the judgment was released on April 23.On the second requirement, Justice Panigrahi said mere proximity between duty and infection was insufficient. “The 30-day stipulation provides a temporal framework, but does not dispense with the need to establish” a link between infection and assigned work, he observed, noting there was “no material” to show such a connection.Rejecting a broader interpretation of the scheme, the bench said, “Considerations of sympathy cannot prevail over the clear and express terms of the guidelines,” warning that an expansive reading could render “almost any government engagement” during the pandemic eligible.Acknowledging the family’s loss, Justice Panigrahi said, “Sympathy… cannot be a substitute for legal entitlement,” and concluded that “the recommendation of the Human Rights Commission cannot stand,” formally setting aside the OHRC order.“This Court cannot lose sight of the fact that the notifications issued by the Government constitute a defined and self-contained scheme, which the Court is called upon to apply, not reshape,” Justice Panigrahi clarified, adding, “The scheme represents a considered exercise of the State’s responsibility, translated into specific terms and conditions that delineate its reach.To travel beyond those terms, even for reasons that evoke sympathy, would risk unsettling the inherent balance in the policy. itself and introduce an element of uncertainty in its application.“
