The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Centre whether benefits given under the PM Cares Fund to children orphaned in the COVID pandemic can be extended to other parentless children.
“You have brought out a policy rightly for COVID orphans, now you must extend it to everybody. An orphan is an orphan, irrespective of whether the parents died in a road accident or due to an illness… You are attending to the condition, not to the parentage,” Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud addressed the Union government, represented by Additional Solicitor General Vikramjit Banerjee.
The three-judge Bench was hearing a PIL petition filed by Poulomi Pavini Shukla in 2018 when she was a law student.
“The matter has been pending for the past five years. I filed it as a student, I have finished my law and am married now,” Ms. Shukla said.
“We will see what the government plans to do,” the Chief Justice responded.
EWS quota
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, who also appeared in the case, said orphans should also be made eligible to the 20% reservation allotted to children belonging to the economically weaker sections (EWS) in private school admissions.
The court said the government could include orphans, especially those from socially and educationally backward circumstances, in the category of “children belonging to disadvantaged groups” under the Right to Education Act, which mandates free and compulsory education.
Ms. Shukla said the States could realise this objective by simply issuing a notification. She said Gujarat and Delhi had already done so. “If children in Gujarat and Delhi can have these benefits, why can’t children from other States get their rights?” she asked.
Scheduling the case after four weeks, the court directed the Centre and all the States to file their separate affidavits on this aspect too.
