NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday said it saw no difficulty in the constitution of a High Powered Committee (HPC) by the AAP government to probe the deaths caused by an alleged medical oxygen shortage during the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic.
The court, dealing with a plea to operationalise the HPC, noted Delhi government’s stand that the committee would not attribute any fault to any hospital and any compensation will be paid and absorbed by the government alone.
It further recorded that the criteria for determining compensation will be open
to scrutiny.
Its task would not overlap with that of a sub-group constituted by the Supreme Court on allocation and utilisation of oxygen.
“We see no difficulty in the HPC constituted by GNCTD in discharging its assigned role,” said a bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Jasmeet Singh which opined that it was not necessary to await the order of the SC in relation to the grant of ex gratia compensation in terms of guidelines issued by NDMA.
"The intent of the GNCTD in issuing the May 27 order on constitution of HPC is not to grant ex gratia amount to Covid-19 victim. The purpose is to examine each complaint received by the committee in relation to the death of a Covid-19 patient due to lack of oxygen. We do not think it is necessary for us to await the order of the SC with regards grant of ex gratia compensation to be paid to a victim as decided by NDMA," the court stated.