On refusal of SC to stay,secons autopsy on Kallakurichi students death

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the plea filed by the father of a Class XII girl, who was found dead at a private school hostel in Kallakurichi district on Wednesday, to stay the re-postmortem ordered by the Madras High Court. 

The High Court on Monday directed the constitution of a panel to perform a re-postmortem on the body of the deceased while hearing the petition filed by the girl’s father. 

The court had appointed Dr Geetanjali from Villupuram government hospital, Dr Juliana Jayanthi from Trichy government hospital and Dr Gokulnathan from Salem government hospital and a retired Dr Santhakumari, a forensic science expert to perform the second autopsy. 

The court had even permitted the petitioner and his advocate to be present at the venue during the re-postmortem. However, it had turned down the petitioner’s request to include a doctor of his choice in the panel. Subsequently, the father had made an oral appeal before the Supreme Court seeking direction to include the doctor of his choice in the panel and to stay the re-postmortem that is scheduled to take place on Tuesday.

 Refusing to stay the re-postmortem, the Supreme Court said, “Sorry, the High Court has already seized the matter.” When the counsel appearing for the Tamil Nadu government said that the High Court had already constituted a team to perform the re-postmortem, the court asked the petitioner’s counsel, “You have no trust on the High Court?”, according to media reports. 

The petitioner’s counsel even urged the court to give at least oral direction to stay the re-postmortem. However, the court turned down his request.  

Following the directions, the second autopsy is likely to take place later in the day. As nobody from the deceased’s family reached the post-mortem venue, the district administration had issued a show cause notice seeking explanation from the family members. The post-mortem is likely to take place in the absence of the family members. 

 Meanwhile, the CB-CID investigating the issue had made two more arrests - teachers handling Mathematics and Chemistry - on Tuesday for allegedly torturing the victim.

 All the five people including the Chairman, secretary and principal of the school, were produced before the judicial magistrate and remanded in prison. However, the state police have nabbed fourcollege students for spreading fake news about the case on social media and picked up 320 people for questioning about their involvement in the violence that erupted during the protests.

 Police said, they were apprehended after examining the CCTV footage of the protests and their social media posts.