Govt Employee Should Not Be Denied Medical Reimbursement For Emergency Treatment Merely Due To Non-Empanelment Of Hospital: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court has ruled that the medical claim of a government employee for reimbursement of treatment undertaken in emergency should not be denied merely because the hospital was not empanelled with CGHS facility.A division bench of Justice V. Kameswar Rao and Justice Anoop Kumar Mendiratta observed that the test would be to see whether the claimant had actually undertaken the. The Delhi High Court has ruled that the medical claim of a government employee for reimbursement of treatment undertaken in emergency should not be denied merely because the hospital was not empanelled with CGHS facility. The bench added that denial of such medical claim by the authorities only adds to the misery of the government servant by forcing such individual to “resort to courts.” “Accordingly, keeping into consideration the constitutional values, the executive instructions need to be applied than rejecting the claim on technical ground of undertaking treatment in a non- empanelled hospital, since the CGHS/State is responsible to ensure proper medical treatment in an emergent condition and further cannot escape the liability, if the treatment undertaken is genuine. The bench made the observations while dismissing a plea moved by the Central Government challenging an order passed by Central Administrative Tribunal directing it to reimburse a retired pensioner employed as a Senior Carpenter with the government, for the balance amount incurred by him due to emergency medical treatment for “Trigeminal Neuralgic” in VIMHANS hospital which was not empaneled.