SC agrees to hear plea for plan to rehabilitate families affected by Covid

The Supreme Court sought response from the Centre and all the States on a plea seeking formulation and preparation of the national plan for ensuring rehabilitation of families affected by Covid-19

The Supreme Court on Friday sought response from the Centre and all the States on a plea seeking formulation and preparation of the national plan for ensuring rehabilitation of families seriously affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna issued notice to the Centre and all State governments on the plea filed by one Sudhir Kathpalia, also seeking a waiver of the education fees for students, who have lost their parents due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Advocate Rajesh Kumar Chaurasia, appearing for the petitioner, said that there are no plans in existence to alleviate the suffering of children, who have been orphaned due to COVID or the families, whose earning members have died due to the deadly virus.

The bench said that it is issuing notice and seeking a response in six weeks.

The plea said, there are various news reports of kids being orphaned due to the untimely demise of their parents and the States need to take urgent adequate steps to alleviate the hardships of the families and overall welfare of the orphan children ''.

It said that there is an imminent apprehension that many students would have been deprived of their education due to non-payment of fees caused by the sudden demise of their parents due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Further, there could be huge displacement of families in case banks and financial institutions take legal recourse against the families who have lost their sole bread earner due to the present pandemic, it said.

It sought direction to the Centre to formulate a national-level plan in consultation with State governments for rehabilitating families affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.