The Supreme Court on Tuesday, July 19, rejected a plea by the father of the deceased Kallakurchi student to stay the second post-mortem to be conducted on Tuesday. The father of the Class 12 student had moved the Supreme Court asking for a particular team of doctors to be included in the panel that will be conducting the second post-mortem on Tuesday. However, the Supreme Court refused to postpone the post-mortem, saying that the Madras High Court has constituted the panel of doctors after due verification.
A lawyer mentioned the father's plea before a bench headed by Chief Justice NV Ramana and sought an urgent hearing on the matter. The Chief Justice said, "Sorry, the high court is already seized of the matter." A counsel representing the Tamil Nadu government informed the bench that the High Court had already set up a panel of doctors for the second post-mortem.
The top court asked the counsel representing the father of the girl, "You have no trust in the high court?" The father’s counsel urged the top court for a direction to the state government to not go ahead with the second post-mortem. However, the top court was not convinced and declined to entertain the plea.
The father had moved the Supreme Court seeking to include a doctor of his choice on the panel constituted by the High Court to conduct the second post-mortem of the girl's body. Earlier, the High Court, too, had declined to entertain this plea made by the father for including doctors of his choice on the panel. The high court had noted that such inclusion is sought for not any bona fide reasons since it was made the first time during the submissions, and it was even in the petition.
After the death of the Class 12 student at her hostel, her father had moved the Madras High Court seeking a fresh post-mortem. The father had also accused the school authorities of trying to hush up the matter of a cognisable case and added that he was not even allowed to see his daughter's hostel room. The girl's father also complained that he was not allowed to interact with his daughter's roommates as well indicating some ulterior motives on the part of the school management.
The Madras High Court had ordered a second post-mortem and had also directed the state police chief C Sylendra Babu to constitute a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the violent protests that broke out in Chinnasalem over the student’s death.