COVID Vaccine Injury Compensation Supreme Court Judgment India | Rachana Gangu Case

Case Summary

• Case Name: Rachana Gangu & Anr. v. Union of India & Ors. (W.P.(C) No.1220 of 2021)

• Citation: 2026 INSC 218

• Date of Judgment: 10 March 2026

• Bench: Honourable Justice Vikram Nath and Honourable Justice Sandeep Mehta

• Constitutional Provisions: Article 21 (Right to Life), Article 14 (Equality), Article 19(1)(a), Article 32, and Directive Principles (Articles 41 and 47).

• Key Issue: Whether the State has a positive obligation to create a no-fault compensation framework for Adverse Events Following Immunisation (AEFI).

Introduction and Scope of the Judgment

The Supreme Court’s judgment delivered by Honourable Justice Vikram Nath and Honourable Justice Sandeep Mehta engages a novel and sensitive intersection of public health policy, constitutional duty and remedial justice. The petitions arise from tragic events asserted to have followed COVID-19 vaccination and raise two structured questions: (i) whether absence of a uniform compensation regime for serious AEFI implicates Article 21; and (ii) whether the Court should direct the framing of a policy to address that lacuna. The Court frames the exercise carefully: it disavows any attempt to re-open scientific adjudication of causation but proceeds to examine the constitutional entitlements of citizens when the State conducts mass interventions for public health.

Constitutional Baseline and State Obligations

The Court reiterates settled principles that Article 21 encompasses right to health and bodily integrity, and that the State bears positive obligations to organise and regulate health measures. Drawing on the Bhopal jurisprudence and subsequent cases such as Parmanand Katara and State of Punjab v. Mohinder Singh Chawla, the Court underscores that the State cannot be a distant spectator where its own programmes produce grave adverse outcomes for some beneficiaries. The reasoning is notable for two complementary strands: first, affirmation of deference to the executive’s domain of scientific expertise; and second, insistence that deference does not absolve the State of an institutional duty to provide meaningful remedies when harm is alleged in the course of a State-led programme.

Inadequacy of Private Law Remedies

Respondents emphasised that existing private remedies — consumer fora and civil courts — suffice. The Court robustly rejects that position as a comprehensive solution. It recognises the technical complexity of vaccine injury claims, the evidentiary difficulties of proving fault, and the practical unfairness of placing the onus on grieving families to establish negligence in individual litigation. Further, reliance on a multiplicity of private suits risks inconsistent verdicts and unequal access to relief in violation of Article 14. That analysis provides a strong policy rationale for a uniform administrative scheme: swift, equitable, and predictable relief consistent with welfare-state values.

Foundations of No-Fault Compensation

The judgment draws on the motor vehicles no-fault analogy (Section 164) and on international practice where many States have adopted vaccine-injury compensation schemes. The Court records foreign examples (Australia, UK, Japan, COVAX) to demonstrate the acceptability and feasibility of no-fault frameworks. The constitutional logic is that a State which organises a mass vaccination drive to protect public health must also structure an equitable mechanism to mitigate exceptional harms occasioned by that exercise of public power.

Separation of Powers and Judicial Limits

Crucially, the Court preserves institutional boundaries. It refuses to constitute a parallel court-appointed expert body to adjudicate scientific causality, finding existing National and State AEFI Committees adequate in the absence of material showing dysfunction. Instead, the Court directs the executive to formulate a no-fault compensation framework through the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and to enhance transparency of AEFI data. This calibrated approach respects executive competence in technical policy while sustaining judicial responsibility to secure fundamental rights.

Practical Implications for Policy Design

The judgment sets a clear remedial mandate but leaves significant design choices to the executive. For practitioners and policymakers, important implementation questions arise:

• Eligibility: the policy must set out the temporal and medical criteria for serious AEFI, burden of proof, and decision timelines.

• Quantum of Relief: medical expenses, loss of dependency, funeral costs, and disbursal mechanics require precision.

• Administrative Architecture: a centralised claims portal and time-bound adjudicatory committees with stipulated expertise.

• Funding: the source of funds (consolidated fund or dedicated vaccine injury fund) and actuarial assessments.

• Transparency: ensuring medical records and causality assessments are accessible to claimants.

For litigators, the judgment creates new dynamics: while individual negligence suits remain available, a well-drafted no-fault scheme will likely divert most claims into an administrative channel that offers speed and certainty. Counsel will need to advise clients on interplay between administrative remedy and private suits, and to scrutinise the scheme’s adequacy to ensure constitutional standards of fairness and reasonableness.

Critical Observations and Future Outlook

The Court’s insistence on a no-fault scheme is consistent with constitutional values, but effectiveness will depend on executive fidelity in framing a robust, independent and well-funded mechanism. There is a risk of tokenistic or narrowly crafted policy that fails to deliver meaningful relief — a scenario that could invite further judicial scrutiny. Further, adequate safeguards must be built to ensure scientific rigour in causality assessment while avoiding procedural complexity that undermines claimant access.

Key Quote: The Constitution does not conceive of the State as a distant spectator to human suffering, but as an active guardian of welfare and dignity.

Conclusion

This judgment marks an important jurisprudential recognition that a State-led public health intervention carries with it a correlative duty to provide institutional redress for rare but serious adverse outcomes. By requiring a no-fault compensation framework while declining to intrude upon technical scientific adjudication, the Court has struck a pragmatic balance between protection of fundamental rights and respect for executive competence. The success of this mandate will turn on the detail of the policy the Union frames.

Selected Extracts from the Judgment

20. The Constitution does not view the right to life solely through the lens of fault. Article 21 also embodies a positive obligation of the State to ensure that where grave harm is alleged to have occurred in the course of a State-led public health intervention, affected families are not left without any accessible mechanism of redress. The absence of such an institutional framework raises constitutional concerns which warrant a calibrated response.
    

21. The Union of India has submitted that question of causality between the vaccination and the resultant deaths involve scientific assessment. They also admit that such an assessment has been conducted by them and no relation has been found between the two. This Court in Jacob Puliyel did a detailed examination of the AEFI surveillance system in India and recorded the following:
    

22. From the material placed before us, we note that the National AEFI Surveillance Secretariat has been functioning for 10 years and as has been pointed out, there is a well-established protocol in place for identification and monitoring of AEFIs. The website of the MoHFW carries the results of causality assessment of AEFI cases, from which the public can obtain relevant information pertaining to AEFIs. We have been informed that a thorough causality assessment analysis of AEFIs is carried out by experts and not every severe disease and death can be attributed to vaccination. Reactions are examined by experts specifically trained to undertake causality analysis before notifying such reactions as adverse events arising from vaccination. There is a well-defined mechanism for collection of data relating to adverse events that occur due to COVID-19 vaccines and the Government of India has taken steps to direct all medical professionals concerned at the ground level to report adverse events. Even medical practitioners at private hospitals are associated with reporting of adverse events. Therefore, we are not inclined to accept the broad strokes challenge mounted by the petitioner that the surveillance system of AEFIs in this country is faulty and the correct figures of those who have suffered any side effects, severe reactions or deaths post inoculation have not been disclosed.

    
    

23. In such a setting, the relationship between the individual and the State cannot be viewed through the prism of fault-based liability. Where the State undertakes an intervention of this scale in discharging of its duty to protect public health, the right to health under Article 21 would automatically extend to a corresponding obligation of institutional support in cases of grave outcomes, no matter how rare they are.

    
    

24. In contrast, as matters stand today, India does not appear to have in place any uniform or structured policy mechanism to provide redress to individuals who suffer adverse effects following vaccination. This gap cannot be lightly overlooked, particularly when vaccination programmes are undertaken as public health measures under the aegis and authority of the State itself. The concern becomes all the more pressing in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, where immunisation was carried out on an unprecedented scale as a collective societal necessity. In such a situation, the State cannot be heard to say that those who experience serious adverse consequences must fend for themselves, without any clear or accessible avenue of relief. The absence of a coherent framework, therefore, calls for timely intervention, lest the rights of such persons remain only theoretical and without meaningful enforcement.