Supreme Court draws the center for the missing time limit on the establishment of a cashless medical treatment scheme for the Supreme Court motor accident victims

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday slammed the center about the delay in setting up a cashless medical treatment scheme for motor accident victims. The court called the Ministry of Road Transport Ministry Secretary for clarification.
Justice Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan Non-transportation with his 8 January order.
“The time given has ended on March 15, 2025. It is a serious violation and not only a violation of the orders of this court, but also a very beneficial law to implement the law. We direct the Secretary, Ministry of road transport And to appear on video-conferencing, the highway and explain why the instructions of this court were not complied, “the bench said.
The court noticed that senior government officials only respond seriously when they are called.
Additional Advocate General Vikramjit BanerjeeRepresenting the center, cited the “bottle neck” as reasons.
The court strongly responded, stating that the law was to benefit the common people and to prevent loss of life due to lack of cashless treatment facilities. He warned of possible contempt action.
The Secretary was directed to appear on 28 April for clarification.
The court directed the Secretary of the Transport Department to provide written instructions to the District Magistrates to upload the hit-and-run claims hidden on the GIC portal.
On 8 January, the court directed the Center to make a plan for cashless treatment during ‘Golden Hour’ as per law.
Referring to Section 162 (2) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, the government was ordered to implement the scheme by 14 March.
The Act defines the Golden Hour under Section 2 (12-A) as a post-trauma after a period of one hour when medical intervention is most effective.
The court emphasized that financial and procedural delays are often fatal.
This highlighted the statutory obligation of the center under Section 162 for making a cashless treatment plan, supporting the right to guarantee the life guarantee of Article 21.
The law requires insurance companies to provide treatment for accident victims during Golden Hour as per the MV Act scheme.
Despite being effective from April 1, 2022, the plan remained unaffected, requiring court intervention.
The Center proposed a draft to limit the cost of treatment up to Rs 1.5 lakh for seven days, which was considered insufficient by the petitioner’s counsel.
The GIC was assigned to manage the hit-end compensation claims and develop a well-organized portal. This portal will facilitate the document upload, inform the deficiencies, and reduce the processing delay. As of 31 July, 2024, 921 hit-and-run compensation claims remained pending due to documentation issues. The court directed the GIC to solve these cases.
GIC was directed to complete the portal development and report compliance by March 14, 2025.