Farmer's Death During Tractor Rally : Delhi High Court Orders Constitution Of Medical Board To Examine Medical Reports

Hearing a farmer Hardeep Singh's petition on the incident where his 26-year old grandson, Navreet Singh passed away in the Republic Day farmers' protest rally due to the alleged overturning of the tractor, a single judge bench of Justice Yogesh Khanna today directed the Secretary, Health, Delhi Government to form a Medical Board to examine the X-Ray report in relation to the death of Navreet Singh, a 26-year old farmer who passed away after his tractor overturned in the Tractor Rally on Jan 26.

The report to be examined is to be prepared by Maulana Azad Medical College in Delhi on the basis of X-ray plates of the victim handed over by the UP police. The board shall consist of a radiologist, a forensic expert and a medical expert.

As per the court's direction in the matter earlier, the victim's grandfather, who is the petitioner in the present case has been shown all 22 CCTV footages of the incident from the area, and handed over a copy of the X-Ray plate, however, no status report in this regard has been filed by the Delhi Police yet.

Earlier the court had directed the UP Police to handover crucial case material, including the original X-Ray, post-mortem video and inquest report to the family of the deceased, on a prayer made by them in this regard.

The family alleges in its petition, filed through Navreet's grandfather Hardeep Singh, that Navreet's tractor overturned only after he suffered an ante-mortem head injury due to a bullet shot on the head by the police. The petition had therefore sought a Court-monitored probe into the incident, seeking to "know the truth" about the incident. The matter was heard by Justice Yogesh Khanna.

In a previous hearing, the court had issued notice on the matter and allowed the government of Delhi to file a detailed status report on the incident.

Earlier, Mehra had also stated that they would have "no hesitation" in handing over the relevant, prayed for documents, including electronic evidence to the family of the deceased.

However, the family claimed to have faced issues with the Superintendent of Police (SP) in the handing over of the documents. Hence, noting that the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and the SP had refused to provide the post mortem video without an order, and that the UP Police had stated that there was no X-Ray report available with them, the court had directed the UP Police to hand over the original post mortem video, the inquest report and the X-Ray plate to the Investigating Officer of the case on Mar 6 itself.