Rs 25 lakh to families of 13 babies lifted from Government Hospitals

Madurai: Stating that court had an obligation to take justice to the doorsteps of have-nots, the Madras high court bench here has awarded a total compensation of Rs 25 lakh to families of 13 babies who were stolen from government hospitals in Tamil Nadu since 2006 and remained untraced.

Viewing seriously the incidents of baby-lifting, the court also said new methods should be introduced to prevent them and directed the state health secretary to consider possibility of introducing Radio Frequency Identification (used in shopping malls to prevent theft of goods) in hospitals and submit a report to the court by October 15.

Granting the compensation under the Victim Compensation Scheme (VCS) in accordance with Sec 357A inserted into the Code of Criminal Procedure in 2008, a bench of Justices S.Nagamuthu and V.S.Ravi ordered the state the director general of police to pay the amount to the families. "The court had a constitutional obligation to take justice to the doorsteps of even those who could not approach it due to poverty, ignorance, illiteracy, want of wherewithal and so on," the judges said.

It directed that Rs 3 lakh be given to the families of six children who could not be traced at all by the police and Rs 1lakh as interim compensation in the cases where the children were being traced. "As per Indian Evidence Act, the children when remained untraced for over seven years, are presumed dead, hence we direct the DGP to pay Rs 3 lakh under the VCS," the bench said. For the seven babies lifted from hospitals in Dindigul, Cuddalore, Kancheepuram, Tiruchirappalli and also Madurai between 2009 and 2013 were concerned, the judges ordered that their parents were entitled to an interim compensation of Rs 1 lakh each. The court took up the issue while hearing a habeas corpus petition by T.Meenakshi whose one-day-old boy was stolen from Government Rajaji Hospital here on June 15, 2013. The judges got a report that 42 babies had been lifted from government hospitals across the state since 2006. Of them, only 29 were traced by the police.