HC direction to Ministry on PIL

The Madras High Court today directed the Secretary, Department of Banking and Insurance, Ministry of Finance, to consider within 3 months a representation by a petitioner on issuing cashless smart cards to Motor Vehicle Policy holders so that accident victims can avail of quality and timely medical aid.
The First Bench, comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice M.Sathyanarayanan, before which the PIL filed by advocate A.P.Suryaprakasam came up, said "we call upon the respondent authority to consider the feasibility of the proposal of the petitioner within a period of three months from today and communicate the decision to the petitioner."

The petitioner submitted that every year lakhs of poor accident victims are suffering untold hardship due to non-availability of quality and timely medical aid.
An accident victim has to initially spend from his pocket and then only he can recover the cost of treatment by way of filing a petition before the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal and in most of the cases it takes a minimum period of 10 years ro recover the cost of medical treatment.
Hence, he made a representation to the Ministry to issue smart cards for Motor Vehicle Policy Holders at the time of issuing the policy and these cards can be used by the person causing the accident to help the victims to get admitted at the nearest hospital since in any event it is the insurance firms which are ultimately going to reimburse the cost of treatment.

As there was no response from the Ministry, he said he filed the present petition.
The Bench directed the Ministry to consider the suggestion made by the petitioner within three months and the decision may be communicated to the petitioner.