Chennai: Madras High Court has recently made a strong
important observation about unnecessary harassment of medical professional in
the court arena, in many medico legal cases. The concerned case was of two doctors
at SP Hospital, who treated an acid attack victim, while on duty. The court
observed that professionals, including doctors, are shy and hesitant to make an
appearance in courts, due to the unnecessary harassment in
cross questioning faced by them.
“This doctor, who has stated that he gave first aid to
Vidhya and referred her to government hospital has been harassed with
unnecessary questions. A perusal of the cross-examination of this witness would
show that most of the questions were unnecessary and unlawful, and were in the
nature of harassing the doctor. There is nothing elicited from this witness to
doubt his credibility. It is not understandable as to why this doctor was
repeatedly asked to come to court, and subjected to cross-examination which was
mostly aimed at harassing him,” observed a division bench of Justice S
Nagamuthu and Justice V Bharathidasan.
The case-in-point refers to a Dr Stalin who was reportedly
on-duty at S P Hospital in Adambakkam. Dr Stalin attended to Vidhya who was
rushed to the hospital after being allegedly attacked by her fiancé-who
allegedly poured acid on her. The reported incident took place on January 30,
2013 reports TOI.
Dr Stalin provided her with first aid. He then referred the
victim to a government facility. Following which he was a prosecution witness
13 in the case and examined. Dr Stalin was subject to cross examination by the
defence counsel.
It is further reported that this led to Dr Stalin facing
questions from the defence lawyer during the hearing of the case in the court.
During the trial, the defence lawyer implied that he should be held responsible
for violation of medical ethics. Besides, he was also questioned on his
integrity of service, by facing questions like why he has not joined government
service on completing his MBBS course.
Defence counsel in addition bombarded the doctor
through his set of questions with relation to the partnership of the hospital
such as when was the hospital established, if it possesses a proper license
under Tamil Nadu Private Clinical Establishment Act, 1997. Also, Dr Staling was
subject to additional scrutiny like bed-accommodation and OTs are in the
hospital.
Reportedly, Dr Stalin was subject to an intense
cross-examination for 2-days. He was also required to visit the court three
times, the court observed. Likewise, Dr Jithendher Singh also made an
appearance in the court for two times, in a gap of 5 months. He spoke about the
post mortem too, and had to appear in the court twice for cross examination.
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