NEW DELHI: India’s top court ordered state authorities to pay $672 (50,000 rupees) as compensation for each death caused by COVID-19, as a way to help families cope with the loss, according to its order reviewed by Reuters on Tuesday.
India has recorded 449,260 deaths overall, a tally experts say is a massive undercount, as millions more may have died in the vast hinterlands. In major cities including the capital New Delhi, experts said a large number of deaths were unreported as hospitals ran out of beds and oxygen supplies.
Petitioners had appealed to the Supreme Court to provide at least eight times the compensation, or 400,000 rupees, under the National Disaster Management Authority, through which the government provides some financial help in natural disasters such as earthquakes.
The government, in its affidavit, which was approved by the top court, agreed to the minimum payable amount to be disbursed by local authorities under the State Disaster Response Fund.
These funds would be over and above those paid by federal and state authorities under various other schemes, it said.
“All concerned authority shall act as a helping hand, so as to wipe off the tears of those who have suffered due to loss of a family member due to Covid-19,” the Supreme Court said in its order.
It is not known how many countries have offered such compensation for COVID-19 deaths. In Thailand, a man filed a lawsuit against the government’s COVID-19 task force and the prime minister and two other government officials, demanding a compensation of 4.53 million baht ($134,000) for negligence of duty causing his brother’s death.
India’s Supreme Court ordered state administrative bodies to brush past long bureaucratic procedures and settle all claims within 30 days of submission.
The country’s health care system buckled under a devastating rise in infections in April and May, driven largely by the more infectious and dangerous Delta variant, which killed at least 170,000 people in May alone, official data showed.
Deaths have since come down sharply, and daily infections have settled around 34,000 since August.
India’s health ministry did not respond to a request for comment on determining the allocation amount.
India has reported 33.85 million infections overall, the second-highest globally behind the United States.
India’s top court orders states to pay $672 compensation for each COVID death
https://arab.news/b5aqw
India’s top court orders states to pay $672 compensation for each COVID death
- India has recorded 449,260 deaths overall, a tally experts say is a massive undercount
- Petitioners had appealed to the Supreme Court to provide at least eight times the compensation
Climate activist group files second lawsuit against Sweden
- Sweden’s Supreme Court in February 2025 ruled that the complaint filed against the state was inadmissible
- “We still have a chance to get out of the planetary crises and build a safe and fair world,” Edling said
STOCKHOLM: A group of climate activists said Friday they were filing another lawsuit against the Swedish state for alleged climate inaction, after the Supreme Court threw out their case last year.
The group behind the lawsuit, Aurora, first tried to sue the Swedish state in late 2022.
Sweden’s Supreme Court in February 2025 ruled that the complaint filed against the state — brought by an individual, with 300 other people joining it as a class action lawsuit — was inadmissible.
The court at the time noted the “very high requirements for individuals to have the right to bring such a claim” against a state.
“We still have a chance to get out of the planetary crises and build a safe and fair world. But this requires that rich countries that emit as much as Sweden stop breaking the law,” Aurora spokesperson Ida Edling said in a statement Friday.
The group, which said the lawsuit had been filed with the Stockholm District Court Friday, said it believes the Swedish state is obligated “to reduce Sweden’s emissions as much and as quickly as necessary in order for the country to be in line with its fair share.”
“This means that emissions from several sectors must reach zero before 2030,” the group said, while noting this was 15 years before Sweden’s currently set targets.
The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency as well as the OECD warned last year that Sweden was at risk of not reaching its own goal of net zero emissions by 2045.
While the first lawsuit was unsuccessful, the group noted that international courts had made several landmark decisions since the first suit was filed, spotlighting two in particular.
In an April 2024 decision, Europe’s top rights court, the European Court of Human Rights, ruled that Switzerland was not doing enough to tackle climate change, the first country ever to be condemned by an international tribunal for not taking sufficient action to curb global warming.
In 2025, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion stating that countries violating their climate obligations were committing an “unlawful” act.
