The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Friday ordered re-postmortem of the body of a daily wage worker who allegedly died after sustaining injuries in a scuffle with a panchayat assistant.
Justice S. S. Sundar directed the Dean, Theni Medical College Hospital, to conduct the re-post mortem through two senior professors from the Department of Forensic Science. The petitioner, K. Kaliyammal (57) Theni said that her husband Kamatchi (65), a daily wage earner, succumbed to head injuries he sustained in a scuffle with a panchayat assistant.
The couple were approached by the panchayat assistant with a promise of constructing a toilet for them on their land and obtained their signatures on a blank paper. A couple of days later, the panchayat assistant and two others threatened them and forcibly took away articles from their home. In the ensuing scuffle, the petitioner said her husband was pushed and he suffered injuries on his head after he tripped on a water pump. He succumbed to the injuries.
The petitioner said that the police were trying to register a case under Section 174 Cr. P. C. (police to report on suicide or anyone killed by accident) instead of 302 IPC (punishment for murder). They were also not initiating action under the provisions of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2015.
She was concerned that the police had conducted the post mortem without following guidelines of the National Human Rights Commission and they were yet to provide a copy of the FIR. She sought a re-post mortem and appropriate action against the accused.
