"A Lady With 90% Burn Injury Can't Be Kept Like That": Jharkhand HC Takes Suo Moto Cognizance Of The Incident Based On A Mail Received To Court

Appearing before the Bench of Chief Justice Dr. Ravi Ranjan and Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad the sender of the Mail, Advocate Anup Agarwal informed the Court that the lady had died of burn injury and that that the lady was not kept in the burn ward and initially, she was simply kept on a bed.

Submissions made before the Court

Advocate Agarwal further sent some photographs of the lady, wherein, in one of the photographs, she was sitting on the floor beside the bed.

Advocate Agarwal also submitted that since she was not given immediate treatment by admitting to the burn ward and which caused the loss of her life.

Further, appearing before the Court, AAG-II informed that there were 20 seats in the burn ward and 24 patients were there and no seat was vacant and, therefore, she was kept in the emergency ward.

Court's observations

Observing that MGM authorities do not have any element of compassion, the Court remarked,

"They are not able to take a decision as to who should be treated first in certain circumstances and they are utilizing dilly-dallying tactics in the treatment. However, this is our prima facie observation as we are not at all satisfied with the information given by the MGM Hospital to the leaned Addl. Advocate General."

Significantly, the Court also noted,

"This untoward and unfortunate incident has given rise to several questions regarding the attitude of the Management of the Hospital, the facilities which are to be provided either by the State or by any competent authority to such Hospitals and perhaps it also shows lack of training to the concerned doctors and staffs in dealing with the situation as in no case a lady with 90% burn injury can be kept like that which is revealed from the photographs sent by Mr. Agarwal."

Directions given by the Court

The Court directed the Member Secretary, JHALSA to make an inquiry in the matter and submit a report to the Court within a period of one week.

Apart from that, the State has also been asked to file a counter affidavit answering the issues.

The Court has also asked the State Government as to whether when the lady came to the Hospital with more than 90% burn injury, immediately any information was given to the police and whether the police has immediately lodged First Information Report?

The Court directed the Hospital Management and the State Authorities to fully cooperate with the Member Secretary, JHALSA during the inquiry and the entire expenditure would have to be incurred by the State Authority.

The matter was thus posted for further hearing on Thursday (25^th February).

Case title - Court On Its Own Motion vs The State Of Jharkhand

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