Madras High Court rejects government plea to hand over bodies to relatives

CHENNAI:A vacation bench of the Madras High Court has declined to modify its order passed yesterday, which directed the State government to preserve the bodies of the 12 persons, who were shot dead during the protests at Thoothukudi over the Sterlite issue on May 22 and 23.A bench of Justices T Ravindran and P Velmurugan, which rejected the plea to release the bodies of the dead to their close relatives, posted the matter for further hearing on May 30.

In a fresh petition seeking modification of the bench’s May 23 order, State Home secretary and the DGP submitted that preserving the bodies with serious bullet injuries, even in cold storage, would lead to rapid decomposition. No purpose will be served by such preservation, it said and prayed the bench to modify its order by permitting the authorities to hand over the bodies to their relatives after post-mortem.The petition said a team of experienced and competent government doctors had conducted the post-mortem on two bodies in the presence of the Judicial Magistrates of four southern districts and panchayathars. This was done to avoid any possible complaint from any quarter later.

Forensic experts have opined that the post-mortem should be done as quickly as possible to prevent decomposition of body leading to its impact on autopsy. 

Experts in Anatomy and Forensic Medicine also said the body preserved by embalming or by any other chemical preservation will not benefit the purpose as it will produce colour changes and mask other signs, thus defeating the purpose of the preservation. Such cases of mass preservation will accelerate decomposition, he added.

When the government and all concerned were earnestly working to bring the situation back to normal, keeping the bodies of the unfortunate victims without disposal, itself may become a focal point of unnecessary unrest.

“In the light of these circumstances, the bodies can be handed over to the relatives. If the bodies were embalmed and kept under preservation with the authorities, there was every possibility of the public, gate crashing into the hospital and creating law and order problems...,” the petition said.