- (1.) The petitioner who claims himself to be a 'small human right activist and fighting for the good causes for the general public interest filed this application under Art. 32 of the Constitution asking for a direction to the Union of India that every injured citizen brought for treatment should instantaneously be given medical aid to preserve life and thereafter the procedural criminal law should be allowed to operate in order to avoid negligent death and in the event of breach of such direction, apart from any action that may be taken for negligence appropriate compensation should be admissible. He appended to the writ petition a report entitled Law helps the injured to die' published in the Hindustan Times. In the said publication it was alleged that a scooterist was knocked down by a speeding car. Seeing the profusely bleeding scooterist, a person who was on the road picked up the injured and took him to the nearest hospital. The doctors refused to attend on the injured and told the man that he should take the patient to a named different hospital located some 20 kilometres away authorised to handle medico legal cases. The samaritan carried the victim, lost no time to approach the other hospital but before he could reach. the victim succumbed to his injuries.
(2.) The Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of the Union of India, the Medical Council of India and the Indian Medical Association were later impleaded as respondents and return to the rule has been made by each of them. On behalf of the Union of India, the Under Secretary in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare filed an affidavit appending the proceedings of the meeting held on 29-5-1986 in which the Director- General of Health Services acted as Chairman. Along with the affidavit, decisions or papers relating to the steps taken from time to time in matters relating to matters relevant to the application but confined to the Union Territory of Delhi were filed. A report in May, 1983, submitted by the Sub-Committee set up by the Home Department of the Delhi Administration on Medico-Legal Centres and Medico,-legal Services has also been produced. The Secretary of the Medical Council of India in his affidavit referred to clauses 10 and 13 of the Code of Medical Ethics drawn up with the approval of the Central Government under S. 33 of the Act by the Council, wherein it had been said : "10. Obligations to the sick : Though a physician is not bound to treat each and every one asking his services except in emergencies for the sake of humanity and the noble traditions of the profession, he should not only he ever ready to respond to the calls of the sick and the injured, but should be mindful of the high character of-his mission and the responsibility be incurs in the discharge of his ministrations, he should never forget that the health and the lives of those entrusted to his care depend on his skill and attention. A physician should endeavour to add to the comfort of the sick by making his visits at the hour indicated to the patients. 13. The patient must not be neglected : A physician is free to choose whom he will serve. He should, however, respond to any request for his assistance in an emergency or whenever temperate public opinion expects the service. Once having undertaken a case, the physician should not neglect the patient, nor should he withdraw from the case without giving notice to the patient, his relatives or his responsible friends sufficiently long in advance of his withdrawal to allow them to secure another medical attendant. No provisionally or fully registered medical practitioner shall withfully commit an act of negligence that may deprive his patient or patients from necessary medical care." The affidavit has further stated : The Medical Council of India therefore ,expects that all medical practitioners must attend to sick and injured immediately and it is the duty of the medical practitioners, to make immediate and timely medical care available to every injured person whether he is injured in accident or otherwise. It is also submitted that the formalities under the Criminal Procedure Code or any other local laws should not stand in the way of the medical practitioners attending an injured person. It should be the duty of a doctor in each and every casualty department of the hospital to attend such person first and thereafter take care of the formalities, under the Criminal Procedure Code. The life of a person is far more important than the legal formalities. In view of this, the deponent feels that it is in the interest of general human life and welfare that the Government should immediately make such provisions in law and amendments in the existing laws, if required, so that immediate medical relief and care to injured persons and/or serious patients are available without any delay and without waiting for legal formalities to be completed in the presence of the police officers. The doctors attending such patients should he indemnified under law from any action by the Government/ police authorities/any person for not waiting for legal formalities before giving relief as a doctor would be doing his professional duty; for which he has taken oath as medical practitioner. It is further submitted that it is for the Government of India to take necessary and immediate steps to amend various provisions of law which come in the way of Government Doctors as well as other doctors in private hospitals or public hospitals to attend the injured/serious persons immediately without waiting for the police report or completion of police formalities. They should be free from fear that they would be unnecessarily harassed or prosecuted for doing their duty without first complying with the police formalities. It is further submitted that a doctor should not feel himself handicapped in extending immediate help in such cases fearing that he would be harassed by the police or dragged to Court in such a case. It is submitted that Evidence Act should also be so amended as to provide that the Doctor's diary maintained in regular course by him in respect of the accident cases would be accepted by the Courts in evidence without insisting the doctors being present to prove the same or subject himself to cross-examination/harass-ment for long period of time." The Indian Medical Association which is a society registered under Act 21 of 1860 through its Secretary has stated in the affidavit that the number of deaths occurring on account of road accidents is on the increase due to lack of timely medical attention. In the affidavit it has further stated : "The second reason is on account of the prevailing police rules and Criminal Procedure Code, which necessitate the fulfilment of several legal formalities before a victim can be rendered medical aid. The rationale behind this complicated procedure is to keep all evidence intact. However, time given to the fulfilment of these legal technicalities sometimes takes away the life of a person seriously injured. Members of public escorting the injured to the nearest hospital are reluctant to disclose their names or identity as they are detained for eliciting information and may be required to be called for evidence to Courts in future. Similarly, the private practising doctors are harassed by the police and are therefore, reluctant to accept the roadside casualty. It is submitted that human life is more valuable and must be preserved at all costs and that every member of the medical Profession, nay, every human being, is under an obligation to provide such aid to another as may be necessary to help him survive from near-fatal accidents."
(3.) The Committee under the Chairmanship of the Director-General of Health Services referred to above had taken the following decisions : "1. Whenever any medico- legal case attends the hospital, the medical officer or duty should inform the Duty Constable, name. age, sex of the patient and place and time of occurrence of the incident, and should start the required treatment of the patient. It will be the duty of the Constable on duty to inform the concerned Police Station or higher police functionaries for further action. Full medical report should be prepared and given to the Police, as soon as examination and treatment of the patient is over. The treatment of the patient would not wait for the arrival of the Police or completing the legal formalities. 2. Zonalisation as has been worked out for the hospitals to deal with medico-legal cases will only apply to those cases brought by the Police. The medico-legal cases coming to hospital of their own (even if the incident has occurred in the zone of other hospital) will not be denied the treatment by the hospital where the case reports, nor the case will be referred to other hospital because the incident has occurred in the area which belongs to the zone of any other hospital. The same police formalities as given in para 1 above will be followed in these cases. All Government Hospitals, Medical Institutes be asked to provide the immediate medical aid to all the cases irrespective of the fact whether they are medico-legal cases or otherwise. The practice of certain Government institutions to refuse even the primary medical aid to the patient and referring them to other hospitals simply because they are medico-legal cases is not desirable. However, after providing the primary medical aid to the patient, patient can be referred to the hospital if the expertise facilities required for the treatment are not available in that Institution." (Underlinings are ours) To the said affidavit of the Union of India also, the minutes of the 10th Meeting of the Standing Committee on Forensic Medicine (a Committee set up by the Ministry of Home Affairs of the Government of India) held on 27-4-1985 have been appended. These minutes show that the Committee was a high-powered one consisting of the Director- General, the Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Health of the Government of India, a Professor from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, the Professor of Forensic Medicine from Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi, the Director, Professor of Forensic Medicine. Bhopal, the Deputy Director, Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Calcutta and certain officers of the Ministry. The proceedings indicate that the Director- Generals of Police, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh were also members of the Committee. From the proceedings it appears that the question of providing medico-legal facilities at the upgraded primary health centres throughout the country was under consideration but the Committee was of the opinion that time was not ripe to think of providing such facilities at the upgraded primary health centres. One of the documents which forms part of the Union of India's affidavit is the copy of a letter dated 9th of May, 1978 which indicates that a report on some aspects of Medico-Legal Practice in India had been prepared and a copy of such report was furnished to the Health Secretaries of all the States and Union Territories more than eleven years back.;