Complete in 3 weeks inquiry into missing organ of dead man: HC

The Delhi High Court today directed a judicial magistrate to complete within three weeks an inquiry into the "missing" of eyeball of a dead man, a life convict, from the mortuary of a government hospital.
As per a plea, Rajkumar, who was undergoing life sentence for killing his wife, was admitted in Rajan Babu Institute of Pulmonary Medicine and Tuberculosos (RBIPMT), a government-run hospital, for TB treatment on November 27, 2013 and died on December 9.
His body was kept in the hospital's mortuary. When the body was shifted to another hospital (Babu Jagjeevan Ram) for post-mortem as RBIPMT does not have the facility to conduct autopsy, it was found that his right eyeball and soft tissue of lower half of pinna of ear lope were missing, the plea said.

A bench of justices Kailash Gambhir and Indermeet Kaur said "since the said aspect of missing of right eyeball of the victim and missing of soft tissue of the lower half of pinna of the victim is a shocking incident and it is required to be given primacy, we accordingly direct the Magistrate (judicial) to complete the inquiry on this aspect at the first instance and submit its report within a period of three weeks".
It also directed the judge to visit the mortuary of RBIPMT.
The concerned area SHO was also directed by the court to accompany the judge during the visit.

The court passed the order while hearing the convict's bail plea, which he had filed earlier on medical ground but during the pendency of his case in the high court, the court was told of the convict's death recently.
His counsel told the court about the whole incident and the bench had earlier directed Additional Public Prosecutor to file a status report.
The prosecutor in the report had told the court that the Magistrate is yet to complete the inquest report and the judge is also conducting a separate inquiry into the missing of the victim's organ.