Hours after stay, High Court grants permission for post-mortem

Initially, hectic pleas by advocates on behalf of Ramkuamar’s father seeking a doctor of their choice in the panel scheduled to hold the postmortem, failed to cut ice before a division bench headed by Justice A Selvam. 

The team then approached the first bench headed by Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, who ruled out hearing the case as he was merely first among equals and that he cannot pass orders on a plea rejected by a division bench. 

The advocate team then made a mention before a single judge Justice T S Sivagnanam, who ordered an interim stay on postmortem until the case was heard. 

However, the judge ruled out the scope for accepting the request of the petitioner to nominate a doctor of his choice and instead directed that the team will contain one more doctor from another GH. 

Advocate R Sankarasubbu appearing for Ramkumar’s father, citing an observation of the NHRC on post-mortems in custodial death cases insisted that a doctor of Ramkumar father’s choice should be included in the panel. 

However, Justice Sivagnanam on recording the public prosecutors submission that in this case instead of the normal practice of just a single doctor, a team will perform the autopsy, said, “In my view, to enable the victim’s family to seek for a nominee in the team of doctors would arise, only when the petitioner is able to make out a case to discredit the team or for any reason, with reasonable material to show that the team of doctors will be biased.” 

The judge also put it to the team of doctors that “the duty enshrined on them is sacred and they should ensure that there is no room for any grievances or complaints.”