Baby sale: Delay in plaint gives woman doctor relief from trial
MADURAI: A lady doctor, charged with illegally selling a child born at her clinic, will not face criminal trial now, as Madras high
court (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/madras-high-court) has spared her of the ‘ordeal of trial’ citing four-year delay in
the complaint by the child’s biological mother.
Since a new mother, J Selva Rani, could not pay delivery charges of Rs 18,000 to the hospital in Dindigul district
(https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Dindigul-district), she had to leave the new-born behind at the hospital to arrange for
money. By the time she returned to the hospital a week later, she was informed that the child had been sold to a couple. On her
complaint, a case was registered against Dr J Amala Devi, prompting her to move the Madurai
(https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Madurai) bench of Madras high court to quash the proceedings pending before
judicial magistrate-I court at Dindigul.
The crux of the case is that Rani was admitted to the hospital belonging to Amala Devi for delivery. Since she was not able to
pay the fees, she was sent out of the hospital which had ‘kept’ her girl child in custody. As Rani took a week to arrange the
money, Amala Devi fabricated false documents as if a couple Gunasekaran and Lakshmi were the biological parents and sold
the baby for Rs 5 lakh. Based on Rani’s complaint, police recovered the child and handed it over to her.
Justice G K Ilanthiraiyan, before whom the petition for discharge filed by Amala Devi came up for hearing, allowed the plea
saying that the alleged birth certificate was fabricated in 2014, whereas the complaint was lodged only in 2018.
“The punishment for the said offence may extend to two years. Therefore, the complaint should have been lodged within a
period of three years, whereas, the present complaint is lodged after four years and as such, it is directly hit under Section 468
of CrPC, and this complaint is barred by limitation,” observed the judge.
“No prudent women would leave a new-born child at the hospital for one week (to arrange the hospital fee). Therefore, only at
this instance, the child was handed over to Gunasekaran and Lakshmi. Thereafter, since she wanted her child back, the child
was handed over to her by police officials. Even then Gunasekaran and Lakshmi were not impleaded as accused in the
complaint lodged by Rani,” observed the judge.
Noting that Rani’s complaint was nothing but clear abuse of the process of law and that Amala Devi need not undergo ordeal of
the trial, the judge quashed the proceedings against the doctor, pending before the magistrate court in Dindigul
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