Chhattisgarh High Court Initiates Suo Moto PIL Over Death Of Bastar's Tribal Girl Due To An Unknown Disease

A bench of Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Bibhu Datta Guru took note of a newspaper item published in Times of India with the heading Tribal girl dies of unknown disease in Bastar with the sub-heading 'Typhoid test reports of students awaited: Doctors.'

Essentially, the news report stated that a class 5 girl student died of an unknown disease in Baster district on Sunday, while ten other students are also ailing with 'seasonal diseases'.

The tribal girl (Anjana Kashyap) had been suffering from fever, headache and nausea for the past two days. Though it was suspected that she was suffering from dengue or malaria, her test reports stated negative.

Before the Court, Advocate General Prafull N. Bharat, along with Government Advocate Sangharsh Pandey, submitted that as per a report of the Chief Medical & Health Officer, Jagdalpur, District-Bastar, it had been stated that the minor girl/deceased was admitted to the hospital after she complained of fever, however, after giving medication, she was discharged on the same day.

But on the next day, the minor girl/deceased again came in critical condition in the hospital, and despite being given the medication, she died.

It was further submitted that the actual cause of her death could not be ascertained, and it was stated that after her death on 01-09-2024, the dead body was handed over to her parents, i.e. father and mother.

It was further submitted that the cremation of the dead body of the minor girl had also been done.

Taking into account these submissions, the Court termed it a 'little bit disturbing' that her parents did the cremation of the minor girl/deceased without the Doctors making any effort to ascertain the actual cause of death.

The Court was also apprised of a report of the Assistant Commissioner of Adivasi Vikas, Jagdalpur, that following the death of a tribal girl, ten other hostel students were taken to a Community Health Center due to fever, of which eight have since returned to the hostel. At the same time, two are still hospitalised and their Typhoid test results are still pending, the Court was told.

In view of this, after the Advocate General assured the Court that the test results, once available, would be submitted to the court through an affidavit by the Chief Medical & Health Officer of Jagdalpur, the bench posted the matter for the next hearing on September 11.