New Delhi, Oct. 29 -- Warning that the country may not forgive the Supreme Court if it fails to stand by doctors who laid down their lives during the Covid-19 pandemic, a bench led by justice PS Narasimha on Tuesday underlined that even private practitioners who kept their clinics open during the pandemic and succumbed to the disease should be entitled to the Rs.50-lakh compensation under the Centre's Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package (PMGKP) insurance scheme. The bench, also comprising justice R Mahadevan, found fault with the Centre's insistence that the benefit was confined to doctors formally requisitioned by state or central authorities. The scheme, introduced on March 28, 2020, under the National Disaster Response Fund, provided insurance to public healthcare workers and private staff "drafted" for Covid responsibilities. "If they opened their clinics during Covid time, what else were they opening it for? We are proud of our doctors. Hundreds of doctors have passed away. We are a great country where doctors were frontline warriors during Covid and offered their services, risking their lives and health," the bench observed, reserving its judgment. The court was hearing a plea by five widows of doctors from Maharashtra whose husbands died of Covid-19 but were denied the benefit on the ground that they were not formally requisitioned for Covid duties. The Bombay High Court in March 2021 had upheld the government's stand that only those "requisitioned" by the Centre or the state were eligible for payout. Rejecting the Centre's contention that the scheme was an insurance measure with specific conditions and not a social welfare initiative, the bench said the intention behind the scheme and the circumstances of the pandemic had to be read together. "If doctors open their clinics during Covid, they do not give haircuts there. It is very easy to say today that they could have stayed home, but what was the purpose of all your notifications at that time? Services of everyone who could help were being summoned," Justice Narasimha remarked. When additional solicitor general Aishwarya Bhati argued that the government's position was guided by the terms of the scheme and warned that a wider interpretation "could open a Pandora's box". But the court was unmoved. "Assumption that all private practitioners were profit-making individuals is not right. Hospitals were not available; doctors were not picking up calls. I still remember I had taken my son to a hospital and I came across a body being wheeled out. The situation was grim," Justice Narasimha recounted. The bench indicated that its order would direct the government and the insurance company to process claims where two conditions were met-that the doctor had kept their clinic or establishment open to offer medical services during the pandemic, and that their death was due to Covid-19....