Delay in post mortem: HC directs city govt to ease procedures

The Delhi High Court today directed the city government to relax procedures to avoid delay in conducting post mortem in police cases and ordered that an investigating officer should directly approach the hospital concerned without following cumbersome channels.
The court also directed that hospitals concerned should issue appropriate orders for having a continuing panel of doctors for conducting the postmortem.
The order came over two PILs which had sought conducting of postmortems without any delay in police cases and constitution of standing and roaster based board of doctors to handle such cases.
A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice R S Endlaw directed city government and Delhi Police to issue a notification within 60 days to enable the investigating officer (IO) to directly approach the hospital concerned.

"We accordingly dispose of these petitions directing the respondent GNCTD/Delhi Police/other concerned authorities to within 60 days hereof issue directions/orders/notifications as may be required to enable the IO/SHO to directly approach the concerned medical college/hospital for having the postmortem conducted, without being required to go through the channels hitherto before prevalent," the bench said.
"To obviate the delays in constitution of the board of doctors on a case to case basis, we further direct the concerned hospitals to issue appropriate orders for having a continuing panel of doctors for conducting the postmortem and any one/two/three doctors from which panel may constitute the board, as the case may require...," it said.

Expressing concern over delay, the court also observed that, "We dispose of these petitions with the hope that the authorities concerned shall act on our directions in utmost sincerity and ensure that the doors of the court are not knocked again for having a postmortem conducted and/or raising a grievance of the delay in the same."
The PILs were filed by K B Joshi and Avadh Kaushik who had drawn the attention of the court towards the cumbersome procedure involved in the postmortems and inordinate delays on account of public holidays.