Dr Archana Suicide Case: IMA Dwarka moves to Supreme Court

New Delhi: Following the suicide of a doctor in Rajasthan's Dausa, a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been moved in the Supreme Court of India seeking guidelines/policies in order to protect treating doctors across the country.  

Plea seeks directions for constituting a CBI enquiry into the circumstances which led to the unfortunate death by suicide under mysterious conditions of a young gynaecologist.

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"CBI enquiry is needed in order to find out the actual perpetrators of the entire incident and bring them to justice to deter other such potential wrongdoers,' reads the petition.

The Petition has been moved by a Doctor body, Indian Medical Association (Dwarka) through its office bearers Dr Mukesh Verma (president), Dr Pritam Pankaj (Secretary), Dr Prakash Lalchandani, Dr Ajit Kumar and Dr Surender Yadav.

Petitioner lawyers, Advocates Shashank Deo Sudhi and Shashi Bhushan stated in the plea that, it (guidelines) is necessitated on account of continuous assaults on treating doctors under the cover of medical negligence across the country on a regular basis.

The petition says that the recent incident of death of a practising gynaecologist Dr Archana Sharma of Jaipur (Rajasthan) on March 29, 2022, is a grim reminder of the ugly treatment received by the treating doctors and the performance pressure on doctors who work under constant fear of being assaulted and harassed at the slightest delay in recovery of the patients and the state police are freely registering an F.I.R. under serious charges including charges under section 302 (Murder) of Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The plea further submits that the gory incident of Jaipur has stirred widespread protest across the country by a large number of doctors fearing their lives and asking for protection from the government so that the doctors should not be harassed or tortured after the treatment of patients.

The petition also states that such incidents in Dausa (Rajasthan) are quite common across the country and there are no regulations/policies/guidelines for the prevention of such unfortunate incidents and a large number of doctors are becoming deceased on account of the unprotected atmosphere of the profession.

There is an urgent need for the creation of a medico-legal cell at every police station across the country to look into the incidences related to medical negligence cases like instant cases which could have been handled with much effective sensitivity in order to ward off the said horrible incidents, plea read.

A pregnant woman died at a private hospital reportedly due to a postpartum haemorrhage during childbirth and following protests by relatives of the deceased woman, a first information report (FIR) for murder under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code was filed by the state police at the Lalsot Police station against Dr Archana Sharma.

Following this Dr Sharma allegedly died by hanging on March 29 inside a room of the hospital. Police said a suicide note was recovered from her room. An FIR has been registered in the suicide case and police have launched an investigation, Dausa Station House Officer, Shankar Lal Meena said. 

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