Top Court to Hear Petition Seeking Criminal Charges in Raipur Child-Swap Case
(Syed Ali Taher Abedi)
New Delhi, September 3 – The Supreme Court has agreed to examine a plea filed by parents seeking criminal action against the directors of a private hospital in Raipur over allegations of swapping their newborn boy child with a girl child soon after delivery.
A Bench of Justice Manoj Misra and Justice Ujjwal Bhuyan was hearing an appeal challenging the Chhattisgarh High Court’s order, which had refused to direct the registration of an FIR against the hospital authorities. The High Court had dismissed the plea, relying on an inquiry report prepared by a committee of five expert doctors, which ruled out any foul play.
Allegations of Child-Swapping the petitioners alleged that the mother delivered twins – a boy and a girl – at the hospital. However, after the delivery, they were handed two girl children instead. On suspecting foul play, the parents lodged a complaint, and a DNA test was conducted. The test reportedly revealed that one girl matched the biological parents, while the second girl did not, indicating a clear case of child-swapping, according to the petitioners.
“That, the petitioners herein are unfortunate parents who have suffered incomprehensible misery at the hands of the respondent no.3 & 4, who have deprived Them of their child by committing the offence of cheating, forgery and kidnapping. They took the benefit of IVF procedure to get their own child with the Hospital of Respondent No. 3 & 4 and after taking two attempts as they were given a package of 1.5 lakhs to undergoing the IVF treatment first time but the said attempt was unsuccessful and thereafter the Respondent No.3 & 4 had again given another IVF procedure for a package of 1.3 lakhs to the Petitioner and the same was successful and the Petitioner No.l conceived the child in her womb” the petitioners states
Despite this, the High Court summarily dismissed the plea without, the petitioners contend, examining these crucial aspects.
Supreme Court Observations during the hearing, the Supreme Court observed that the matter required deeper consideration given the serious allegations of kidnapping and violation of the child’s rights. The Court has now listed the matter for further hearing after four weeks.
“That the petitioners went under the DNA test to verify the paternity of both the children and the DNA report also crystally cleared the offence committed by) the Respondent No.3 & 4 of kidnapping, swapping of one child of the Petitioners. The Petitioners made complaints before all the Competent Authorities against Respondent No.3 and 4 but nothing was done by them. The delay on the part of the respondent authorities in conducting the investigation shall result in loss of valuable evidence on the one hand, whereas on the other hand the petitioners are being deprived of their custody of newly born baby, who has been kidnapped and handed over to a third party.”
Counsel for Petitioners the petitioners were represented by Advocate Ashok Kumar Panigrahi, Advocate Jitendra Kumar Sharma, and Advocate-on-Record Chand Qureshi, who argued that the High Court erred in dismissing the plea at the threshold stage without directing any investigation into the allegations.
