The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday directed the Ministry of Health, Government of India, to revamp the infrastructure facilities available at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Kalyani, West Bengal, to bring it at par with the facilities available at AIIMS in Delhi and Rishikesh.
The single-judge Bench of Justice Tirthankar Ghosh passed the order on a petition filed by the father of the victim in the Jaynagar rape and murder case had filed a petition seeking the post-mortem of his daughter at a Central government-run hospital.
Accordingly, the High Court had directed AIIMS, Kalyani to conduct the postmortem on Monday. However, the High Court was today apprised that AIIMS Kalyani did not have the required facility to conduct a postmortem.
In view of this, the single-judge Bench directed AIIMS, Kalyani to conduct the procedure by using the infrastructure available at the State-run Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial (JNM) hospital in Kalyani.
It further directed the Additional Solicitor General to send a health in-charge team to assess and identify deficiencies at AIIMS Kalyani.
The High Court ordered the Central government to revamp the infrastructure by December 31, 2025, so that the common man could avail the best services of doctors.
The single-judge Bench, while noting that the first lot of students would be coming out soon, expressed its concern over the fact that the best of the students would pass out the MBBS from AIIMS Kalyani, without knowing the procedure of post-mortem.
The judge further asked why should people go to South India to get treated?
The West Bengal government was ordered to give all permissions required for the revamping of AIIMS Kalyani branch and to ensure that no hindrance was created in the process.
On October 4, a nine-year-old girl had gone missing from her house in South 24 Parganas district. In the early hours of October 5, her body was discovered from the Mahismari area of Jaynagar, West Bengal. Later in the day, a judicial magistrate turned down a police request to conduct a postmortem examination (in the presence of a judicial magistrate) at the Mominpur Police Morgue Hospital.
The State of West Bengal then moved the High Court challenging the trial court order. However, it later gave up the challenge and decided to come in support of the demand made by the victim’s father that the postmortem be conducted at a hospital run by the Central government.