COVID-19 Death: What Is The Employer's Liability?

The second wave of COVID-19 in India left the country in dismay due to the grim statistics of deaths. India Inc. was seen divided and confused, assessing its responsibility and liability in case of untimely deaths of its employees due to the novel virus.

In order to help its employees fight the pandemic, companies have been seen to come out with several ways to support its staff in these tough times. These include benefits such as enhancing medical insurance coverage to include COVID-19 protection, meeting medical expenses of COVID-19 infected employees, setting up vaccination and testing camps, compassionate payments to family of deceased employees, financial sponsorship for education of children of deceased employees, continuing disbursement of deceased employee's salary for a certain period etc. Despite providing such benefits, the question still lingers - Whether the employer would be held liable for COVID-19 related death in case the employee contracts the