Supreme Court seeks information on Centre's scheme for kids orphaned by COVID

The Supreme Court Tuesday took note of the Centre's welfare scheme to provide relief to children who have lost parents to COVID-19 pandemic, and sought details of the plan along with the mechanism devised to monitor it.

A bench comprising justices L Nageswara Rao and Aniruddha Bose also directed states and Union Territories (UTs) to appoint nodal officers of level of Secretary or Joint Secretary who will interact with its amicus curiae Gaurav Agrawal for providing all the information on orphans, their identification and about the welfare measures for them.

The bench said it would hear on Monday the cases of ten states first - Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar and Jharkhand where more kids have lost bread winning guardians.


The top court has been hearing an application, in a pending sup motu case on spread of COVID-19 in children homes, filed by the amicus curiae highlighting the woes being faced by kids orphaned by the deadly virus.