Hearing the case on February 25, 2025, a Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta made strong observations underscoring the link between the vaccination drive and the pandemic. The bench noted that deaths due to COVID-19 and deaths due to COVID-19 vaccines should not be treated differently, remarking that “ultimately, the entire vaccination drive was a response to the pandemic. You cannot say they are not interlinked.” In other words, the Court reasoned that people who took vaccines did so as part of the national effort to combat the COVID-19 disaster, and hence any loss of life from vaccine side effects is essentially a consequence of the pandemic and should be viewed in that context.
The Supreme Court’s stance was that it would be arbitrary to compensate families of those who died of the disease (COVID-19) while denying compensation to families of those who died from rare vaccine-related complications, given that both groups of people were victims of the same public health crisis. The judges emphasized that the vaccination campaign was driven by the need to control the pandemic; thus, fatalities arising from the vaccine program are “interlinked” with the pandemic and cannot be dismissed as isolated incidents. This reasoning indicates the Court’s view that a parity of approach is needed: the State’s response to the pandemic included both aggressive vaccination and relief measures for victims of COVID-19, so fairness would demand some relief measures for the much smaller number of vaccine victims as well.
Based on these observations, the Supreme Court directed the Central government to “seek instructions” on the possibility of formulating a compensation policy for vaccine-related adverse effects, particularly death cases. The Additional Solicitor General (ASG) representing the Union government, Ms. Aishwarya Bhati, was given three weeks to consult the government and report back on whether a dedicated policy could be introduced. The Court scheduled the next hearing for March 18, 2025, to discuss the government’s response and the way forward. Notably, the Supreme Court has not yet mandated a compensation scheme; it has opened the door for the executive to consider one, signaling the judiciary’s concern and prompting a policy dialogue.
