The Delhi High Court pulled up the city police on Wednesday over its practice of waiting 72 hours, as per a standing order of the Delhi Police Commissioner, to carry out post-mortem of unidentified bodies.
It said that the agency’s decision to wait for 72 hours will lead to loss of valuable medical and forensic evidence.
A Bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C. Hari Shankar took cognisance of a news report which said that the police was yet to carry out a post-mortem of an unidentified woman found dead near Shanti Van here two days back.
Senior police officers, including an Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police, who were present in courtroom said there was a September 2010 standing order of the Commissioner of Police which said that post-mortem of unidentified bodies can be conducted only after 72 hours.
Terming it unfortunate, the Bench said it “fails to see how non-identification of a body can interdict investigation, especially in cases of murder or where sexual assault is suspected”, as in the instant case.
The Bench also directed the police to forthwith carry out the autopsy and forensic examination of the body and a status report be filed before the next date of hearing on May 31.
The court also ordered that the body will not be cremated without carrying out of the autopsy and collection of all necessary evidence.
On May 14, the police were informed that a woman, with head injuries, was lying unconscious in the Shanti Van. She was rushed to a hospital where she was declared brought dead.
The woman is yet to be identified. It is suspected that she was hit with a stone on her head and effort was also made to distort her face, the police had said. During the hearing, the Bench asked police whether there were any cameras installed at traffic lights and intersections to check incidents of robbery and catching the culprits.
The court directed the police to put up more CCTVs on its own with signboards saying that people are under surveillance. Also, it told the police that the first ring of a call made to the emergency number 100 should be recorded and the time logged to improve the response time. People should not be made to wait for several minutes for the call to be picked up, it said.
