The Madras High Court on Friday rejected a plea for conducting a third postmortem in the case of the death of a schoolgirl in Kallakurichi, since an expert had said that dissecting the body multiple times might not yield any result.
Justice N. Sathish Kumar, however, constituted a team of three forensic science experts from Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (Jipmer), Puducherry, to analyse the reports and videos of the first two postmortems.
The judge directed the team, comprising Kusa Kumar Shaha, Siddharth Das and Ambika Prasad Patra, all from the Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology of Jipmer, to submit their opinion to the Villupuram Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) in a sealed cover within a month.
He also recorded the undertaking of R. Sankarasubbu, counsel for the girl’s father, that her family will accept the body between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. on Saturday and perform the final rites, too, on the same day, peacefully, without giving room for violence.
The judge made it clear that the girl’s father could obtain copies of the postmortem certificates from the CJM by filing the necessary application after the expert team submits its final opinion. He said the petitioner could also obtain copies of the videos from the Magistrate, on merits.
During the hearing of the case, the judge expressed his displeasure over the girl’s father coming up with new allegations with each passing day. He recalled that the petitioner’s original request was to order a Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) probe and to conduct a second postmortem. Both of his requests were acceded to.
While the DGP ordered a CB-CID inquiry after the violence that erupted last Sunday following the girl’s death, Justice Kumar on Monday ordered a second postmortem by a team of forensic experts hand-picked by him.
Accordingly, the second postmortem was conducted on Tuesday. In the meantime, the petitioner filed an appeal before the Supreme Court and insisted on including a doctor of his choice during the second postmortem.
When the appeal was heard by the Supreme Court on Thursday, the appellant withdrew his appeal with the liberty to ventilate his grievances before the High Court. Hence, the petitioner insisted on a third postmortem.
Justice Kumar summoned R. Selvakumar, Head of the Department of Forensic Medicine, Government Kilpauk Medical College, to the court on Friday, only to hear from the latter that he had not come across any case, in his career spanning 25 years, of a third postmortem having been conducted.
The professor told the court that it would, however, be possible for experts to offer an opinion after perusing the first two postmortems and the videos. Hence, the judge ordered accordingly and adjourned the case to July 29 for the police to file a status report.
