New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that families of private doctors and health professionals who lost their lives while performing Covid-19 duties cannot be excluded from the Centre’s Rs 50 lakh insurance scheme.

A bench of Justices P.S. Narasimha and R. Mahadevan delivered the ruling in an appeal filed by the widow of Dr B.S. Surgade, a private practitioner who succumbed to Covid-19 in June 2020 after keeping his clinic open during the lockdown.

The Bombay High Court had previously dismissed her plea for benefits under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana Package (PMGKY), holding that Dr Surgade’s work was not officially “requisitioned” as Covid duty.

Holding that families of doctors and health professionals cannot be deprived of the insurance scheme on the basis of a hyp

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