Most govt hospitals complying with mortuary guidelines:HC told

The city government today submitted before the Delhi High Court that most of the hospitals under its control, except one, are complying with the Centre's guidelines on maintenance of mortuaries.
The Delhi government said that Aruna Asaf Ali Hospital is not complying with the guidelines of the Directorate of Health Services and the issue will be reviewed again in one month's time to see if it is following the norms.
The submissions were made in an affidavit before a bench of justices B D Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva which was hearing a PIL initiated by it after a murder accused died while in custody and an eye went missing while the body was kept in the mortuary.

The affidavit, filed by advocate Zubeda Begum, came after the court on February 11 had pulled up the city government and civic agencies for not informing it whether hospitals under their control are complying with the Centre's advisory on management of mortuaries.
It had also pulled up the government for not submitting a proposal for providing compensation to the kin of the murder accused, who died, allegedly due to tuberculosis, while in judicial custody and then one eye of the deceased went missing while the body was kept in the mortuary of a government hospital where he had been admitted for treatment.

On this issue, the city government has said that the hospital concerned is under the jurisdiction of the municipal corporation and thus the compensation cannot be provided by the government.
The court listed the matter for further hearing on March 18.