Despite the Bill being submitted by the law commission to the MHA in 2008, the new Coroners Act, which would probe suspicious deaths more thoroughly, is yet to come into force
Dr Justice AR Lakshmanan who submitted the Bill
It's closing in on a decade, but the much-awaited enactment of the new Coroners Act, necessary for more thorough investigations into "deaths under mysterious circumstances" is still pending before the Union Home Ministry.
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Recommended in the 206th report of the law commission headed by Dr Justice AR Lakshmanan, the Bill (a copy of which is with mid-day) was submitted to then minister of law and justice on June 10, 2008, Dr HR Bhardwaj, and forwarded to the MHA on June 26.
If enacted, the Act would authorise the setting up of an independent authority to inquire into the real cause of the death of a person, even if s/he were to die outside the country in mysterious circumstances. And its delay in becoming a law has become a matter of graver concern on account of the recent spurt in unnatural deaths — in hospitals, police encounters and due to police firing, on railway premises and property, including tracks, and even in homes by way of dowry deaths — with some cases even hinting at a strong possibility of the complicity of a state official.
Illustration/Ravi Jadhav
'Need of the hour'
Dr Sudhir Kumar Gupta, professor and head of the department of forensic medicine and toxicology, AIIMS, Delhi, said, "It is the need of the hour, especially in India, to have a coronial system of conducting inquest and inquiry into suspicious deaths. In the case of the mysterious death of UK national Scarlet Keeling, we had opined to the CBI that it was a case of rape and murder, and accordingly, a chargesheet was filed. Her mortal remains were preserved in a UK mortuary for years, before the coroner could finally sanction permission for burial, as these could have been required for further coronial probe."
And the irony in the mysterious death of Sunanda Pushkar, he added, was that though AIIMS said the death was due to poisoning, two Indian forensic science laboratories, where viscera samples were sent for testing, did not confirm presence of poison. Only after one-and-a-half years, the FBI laboratory confirmed that Pushkar's viscera sample had poison.
"This is a matter of serious concern, for the Indian judiciary system to rely on such viscera reports from laboratories with questionable creditability," said Dr Gupta.
He is of the firm belief that had high-profile suspicious deaths like those of Jessica Lal, Shivani Bhatnagar, Sheena Bora and Ishrat Jahan, besides Pushkar, been dealt by a coroner, instead of the police, truth would have prevailed without any pressure.
"I hope the present government does everything possible to bring the Act in force at the earliest, so that, apart from giving justice to the dead, even the perpetrators can be tried and punished accordingly," he added.
Expertspeak
Justice Lakshmanan, in his report, has appreciated the assistance given by senior Supreme Court advocate Dr RG Padia in its preparation. When mid-day contacted his nephew, advocate Prakash Padia, a senior lawyer practising in Allahabad High Court and SC, he said, "I remember the draft work on Coroners Act, which he was working on… it should be implemented soon."
Police surgeon Dr SM Patil, who is in-charge of the five post-mortem centres (Rajawadi, Cooper, JJ, Bhagwati and Shatabdi), said, "It's good if the Centre implements the new Act. Maharashtra had abolished it in 1999 and introduced post-mortem centres in the larger interest of grieving families, who had to wait for hours at a coroner court to complete formalities and receive their kin's mortal remains."
"The need of the hour is to have a quasi-judicial body, like the coroner system, so that truth can prevail and justice to the dead can be delivered," he added.
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