Madras High Court seek reply from State, Central Govt on plea for digitised media reports

CHENNAI:  The Madras High Court recently issued a notice to the Central and State governments to respond to a petition seeking the digitisation of medical reports, including postmortem reports.

The first bench of Acting Chief Justice T Raja and Justice D Krishnakumar issued the notice, returnable by four weeks when public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Tiruchy-based physician Dr Mohammed Khader Meeran came up for hearing in September.

The petitioner had sought direction from the Central and State governments to implement MedLeaPR (medico legal examination and postmortem reporting) software framework in all government hospitals, and Centrally-funded hospitals under the control of the family welfare, labour, and ESI departments of the Central government.

He also wanted all practising doctors to be trained to use MedLeaPR software to digitise medical certification of the cause of death and other reports/certificates.

Medico-legal examination of a person involved in an accident, assault etc. is an important function of the health department. Medico-legal records are sent to the police for investigation. The records are important for individuals, institutions, physicians, those authorising burial, police, judiciary, insurance companies etc.

So, it is important to issue them in a legible, readable format to render justice and issue/store them in an encrypted manner to prevent unauthorised manipulations, he said. He rued that no effort was taken by government authorities to implement the MedLeaPR software.

‘Govt authorities not complying with order’
The petitioner said no effort was taken by government authorities concerned to implement the MedLeaPR software though a year has passed since the court passed an order in this regard