Covishield vax death case: Bombay HC issues notices to Centre, Bill Gates, SII

The Bombay High Court has issued notices to the Serum Institute of India (SII), Pune, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and the Centre in a case filed by an Aurangabad man alleging that his medico daughter died due to the side-effects of the Covishield vaccine and sought Rs 1,000-crore as compensation.

The petitioner is Dilip Lunawat, who has contended that his daughter Snehal Lunawat, 33, who was also a Senior Lecturer at the SMBT Dental College & Hospital in Nashik, was compelled to take the vaccine along with all other healthworkers there.

Dilip Lunawat said that his daughter was assured that the vaccines were completely safe and posed no risks/threats to her body, and attached his daughter vaccine certificate (January 28, 2021), and how she died on March 1, 2021, due to the alleged side-effects of the Covishield vaccine.

A few days later, she suffered severe headaches and vomiting and was rushed to a hospital where doctors detected bleeding in her brain and she later succumbed owing to the purported aside-effects of the vaccine', as per Lunawat's plea.

He also cited the views and interviews of experts like the Drug Controller-General of India, Dr. V.G. Somani, and AIIMS Director Dr. Randeep Guleria, making them respondents along with the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and how the incident figured in the Centre's own Adverse Events Following Immunisation Report of October 2, 2021.

In his petition filed in February 2022, Dilip Lunawat said that in 2020, the SII, Pune entered into a partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to speed up the process of manufacture and delivery of upto 100 million doses of Covishield vaccines in India and for other third world countries.

"The petitioner lost his elder daughter. His loss can neither be explained in words nor can be compensated in terms of money.

Only some sort of succour can be done by awarding compensation," said the plea, seeking Rs 1,000crore as interim compensation to the family.

Dilip Lunawat also sought a declaration that the state authorities are responsible for causing his daughter's death "by false narratives", the authorities should initiate steps to stop further deaths of citizens and publish the side-effects of the vaccines.

The plea urged that the state authorities should be given the liberty to recover the compensation amount from SII, which manufactured the Covishield vaccine.