Mumbai, Dec. 26 -- Granting relief to the husband of a contractual worker, who died of Covid in 2021, while on duty at a primary health centre in Kolhapur, the Bombay High Court said on Tuesday, "Agony and pains of family members of a Covid fighter are the same, irrespective of the nature of employment of such employee." The Kolhapur bench of the High Court directed the state government to extend the benefit of the Rs.50 lakh ex-gratia insurance scheme to the family of the deceased woman. The claim had earlier been rejected by the public health department since she had died four days after the scheme ended. The court held that not only had she had contracted the virus when the scheme was in effect but also that rejecting the widower's claim on such a technicality would be "contrary to the values of justice, fairness, and dignity." Ramesh Patil from Kolhapur had moved the HC seeking the benefit of the personal accidental cover after his wife Sarita Patil, a contractual data entry operator, died on July 4, 2021 after she was infected by the Covid-19 virus. The additional secretary, public health department had rejected Patil's claim on the ground that the ex-gratia assistance scheme was operational till June 30, 2021. Since Sarita died four days later, on July 4, 2021, the insurance cover benefit was not admissible. A division bench of justices M S Karnik and Ajit B Kadethankar quashed a May 24, 2022 order of the Public Health Department rejecting Ramesh's claim. Ramesh's lawyer told the court that Sarita was a contractual data entry operator at the Primary Health Centre in Kadgaon, Kolhapur and was discharging duties concerning Covid patients. Although she had died on July 4, 2021, she had contracted the virus before June 30, 2021. The judges observed, "To deny or restrict the relief to those who passed away after June 30, 2021 would be contrary to the values of justice, fairness, and dignity which animate our Constitutional order, and also contrary to public conscience and societal gratitude." The court said that the government had come up with a benevolent scheme providing the ex-gratia insurance benefit and it should not be given a narrow meaning. "We declare that "it is not the date of death, but the date of contracting Covid-19 infection which is material for grant of insurance coverage under the Government Resolution dated May 29 2020 read with Government Resolution dated May 14, 2021". The judges said that discarding a claim on the ground that the deceased employee was merely an outsourced contractual employee would defeat the very purpose of the scheme....