Delhi Court Asks AIIMS To Form Panel Over Woman's Plea Seeking Abortion

The Delhi High Court has asked the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to constitute a board of at least three doctors to examine the woman seeking termination of pregnancy, claiming her sonography revealed certain fetal abnormalities.

A division bench of Justice DN Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan, after hearing the submission of the petitioner's advocate Sneha Mukherji, said that the report of the medical board/committee will be filed in the court by the evening of July 13.

"We request the medical board appointed by the Director, AIIMS to give a report about the condition of the foetus and as to whether the termination of pregnancy would be safe in the case of the petitioner or not, including the likely physical and mental consequences to the petitioner in both eventualities," the bench said in its order.

The plea sought directions to allow the petitioner to undergo medical termination of the pregnancy and quash Section 3(2)(b) of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, to the limited extent that it stipulates a ceiling of 20 weeks for an abortion to be done under Section 3, as ultra vires Article 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India.

According to the petition, the woman petitioner has now entered into the 23rd week of pregnancy.

It said that the petitioner is a 22-year-old woman residing in Delhi who hails from an economically weak background, and enforcement of the act compelled her to undergo severe psychological, physical and emotional trauma.

"By denying her an abortion when her fetus was diagnosed open spina bifida with meningoeele and anterior indentation of the fetal skull giving lenion shape appearance with dilated both lateral ventricle with dangling choroid plexus (Arnold Chiari malformation), thus causing severe near fetal abnormality with the fetus," the plea said.