BENGALURU: Although the source of access of Vidvat's discharge summary by Mohammed Nalpad's father MLA N A Haris was ignored by the Karnataka High Court, it did not ignore the act of Dr Anand K of Mallya Hospital for allegedly writing the unusual discharge summary for convenience to Nalpad.
While rejecting the bail to Nalpad on Wednesday, Justice Sreenivas Harish Kumar observed that the source of access of discharge summary can also be ignored; but the way it was written could not be ignored — especially the sentence 'no untoward incident took place..' could not be ignored, the judge said.
"In my opinion, the doctor who issued the discharge summary, appears to have exceeded his limits. It is very pertinent to mention here that the very same doctor goes to the extent of giving a statement about the fitness of Vidvat. He has also given statement that Vidvat has been tutored to delay in giving statement before police.
If these statements of a doctor are taken into consideration, obviously a question arises as to what is the interest that he has, in giving these statements? Is he expected to give such statements?," the court said. Further, the court explained that the discharge summary showed at least 3-4 doctors attended on the patient. When those doctors kept quiet, why Dr Anand showed interest in giving statements and writing something in his discharge summary which was not expected to find a place in it.
"Doctor might have been under the influence of the petitioner (Nalpad) or his men. This is one way of tampering with evidence. Therefore, any amount of explanation offered by the petitioner's counsel regarding the discharge summary is of no avail to him," the court said.
When special public prosecutor MS Shyam Sundar raised objections to how the discharge summary was shared on Facebook by Nalpad's father MLA NA Haris though it was not given to the investigator, Nalpad's counsel contended that the discharge summary was taken after a television channel showed it.
"In a medico-legal case, the investigation officer is entitled to a copy of it. Before he could get a copy of it, if discharge summary could be accessed by a TV channel, it only showed somebody's intervention, the court observed.