HC refuses to interfere with criminal proceedings against doc
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has refused to interfere with the criminal proceedings against a doctor for allegedly illegally terminating a 16-year-old girl’s six-week pregnancy and failing to report the matter to the authorities.
While the petitioner-doctor claimed that the minor’s age at the time of abortion was stated to be 20 years and she consented to the procedure, Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav underscored that under the law, age has to be “ascertained and recorded”, and “not merely accepted on an unverified oral representation”.
Justice Kaurav held that the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act provides that a minor is incapable of independently consenting to termination and her pregnancy cannot be medically terminated without the guardian’s consent in writing.
“A registered medical practitioner performing an invasive procedure that the MTP Act itself conditions on the patient’s age is not absolved of the obligation to seek some documentary anchor for that age merely because an escort volunteers a figure. The entire statutory architecture examined presupposes that age is a fact to be ascertained and recorded, not merely accepted on an unverified oral representation from an adult accompanying the patient, particularly where that adult, as later investigation revealed, was not in fact in any relation with the prosecutrix at all,” said the court in the judgement passed on August 5.
Before the high court, the petitioner challenged the trial court’s September 2020 order directing further investigation into whether the doctors terminated the pregnancy while knowing the girl was a minor and then consciously did not report the matter to the police in terms of Section 19 of the POCSO Act.
Subsequently, a supplementary chargesheet was filed, arraigning the petitioner as the sole accused for various offences, including Section 313 (causing miscarriage without woman’s consent) of IPC.
While taking cognisance, the trial court additionally invoked Section 21 of the POCSO Act and summoned the petitioner. Section 19 of the POCSO Act casts an obligation on doctors to report instances of a minor’s pregnancy and Section 21 imposes a penal consequence on a failure to discharge that obligation.