The Allahabad high court has held that a claim for ex-gratia assistance of ₹ 50 lakh under the government’s Covid-19 scheme cannot be rejected merely for want of a positive RT-PCR report when the government hospital’s own records show a positive antigen test result and the authorities themselves accept the infection and the cause of death.
The court observed, “In this case, the hospital’s own death proforma expressly records Covid-19 viral pneumonia. That entry provides no basis for disregarding Covid-19 as the underlying cause of death. In its order dated October 26, the court noted that the government order itself recognised an RT-PCR report, an antigen test result or a CT scan report as acceptable evidence of infection. The court held that this requirement had to be read in conjunction with the Covid-19 death certificate form forming part of the scheme, which allows the certifying medical authority to record another source of confirmation when testing was not conducted using the specified methods.
Cardiopulmonary arrest is recorded as the event that followed it. An RT-PCR report, therefore, was not the only recognised means of establishing Covid-19 infection.
