Delhi High Court Directs AIIMS To Constitute A Medical Board For Examining 25 Weeks Foetus Abnormalities

Background

The direction came in the view of a petition filed by a woman who had approached the High Court for seeking the termination of her 25 weeks old foetus. According to Adv. Sneha Mukherjee, counsel of the petitioner, the child will not be able to survive as the kidneys of the unborn have not been developed. Therefore, the petitioner had asked for a relief in the form of directions from the Court to allow the medical termination of her pregnancy.

According to the petitioner, she had found about the Bilateral Agenesis and Anlyaramni syndrome on a later stage after undergoing a sonography at the stage of 25 weeks of her pregnancy.

The petitioner had also challenged the constitutional validity of Sec. 3(2)(b) of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 which provides that only a pregnancy exceeding 12 weeks but not exceeding 20 weeks can be terminated if at least two medical practitioners are of the opinion that such pregnancy would involve a risk to the life or any other substantial risk of the woman or to the child.

The order is crucial as the Act allows the termination of pregnancy upto a maximum of 20 weeks, an exception provided under the legislation. However, in another development, the Lok Sabha had recently passed The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Bill 2020 on 17^th March, 2020 which provides for the termination of pregnancy upto 20 to 24 weeks in cases of substantial foetus abnormalities.

Directions of the Bench

The bench directed AIIMS to firstly, constitute a Medical Board for examining the health condition of the woman and secondly, to submit a report before 4^th January 2021, the next hearing of the case, to the Court.

To this, the bench ordered that "This court considers it apposite to direct Superintendent, All India Institute of Medical Sciences to forthwith constitute a Medical Board to examine the petitioner and submit a report regarding the medical condition of the foetus and the possibility of the foetus not surviving the term of the pregnancy. The report of the Medical Board be submitted on or before 04.01.2021."

Case Name: Jyoti v. Govt of NCT of Delhi & Ors. W.P. (C) No. 11248 of 2020

Order dated: 30.12.2020

Next date of Hearing: 04.01.2021