CHENNAI: In a revelation which is likely to open a can of worms in the forensic department of state-run hospitals, a scientific officer testified in a court here on Tuesday that a government doctor had signed an autopsy report without even seeing the body of the victim.
The startling disclosure was made by K Loganathan during the trial of a three-and-half year-old murder case. The victim, Revathy, was murdered in the city in 2011 and three of her in-laws are arraigned in the case.
Testifying in the Mahila Court, Loganathan said Prof Murugesan, then head of forensic department in Kilpauk Medical College Hospital, prepared the post-mortem examination report while at home in Tambaram and did not even enter the room in which the autopsy was conducted.
“I was present in the room and one Dr Josephine Helan was also there. But she too stood in a corner of the room and recorded what the staff orally told her about the injuries. Through phone, he asked me about the kind of injuries and I told him about the contusion in the neck. When I asked where he is, he said he was at home in Tambaram,” Loganathan said in his statement recorded by judge Meena Sathish.
Prof Murugesan’s report, which is now proved as flawed, had almost closed Revathy’s death as “accidental electrocution”, if not for her parent’s legal battle at the State Human Rights Commission.
After managing to obtain a copy of the video recording of the autopsy, her parents approached the commission along with expert opinion of renowned forensic scientist V Dekal. The expert opinion categorically stated that the marks in the neck showed that Revathy was strangled and there was nothing to suggest the victim was electrocuted.
The Commission in June 2012 directed the case be transferred to CBCID for a fresh probe and subsequent opinion of another government doctor Shantha Kumar also confirmed that Revathy was strangled, not accidentally electrocuted.
The CBCID’s probe implicated Revathy’s sister in-law J Nirmala Devi, mother-in-law R Rajeswari and brother- in-law Vasudevan as culpable of murdering Revathy by strangulation. The chargesheet said Revathy was strangled to death by her in-laws on October 20, 2011 in their Anna Nagar house. They were enraged that she had secretly mortgaged Rajeswari’s gold jewellery.
The trio is also facing charges of suppressing the crime by creating forged evidence that a damaged power cable of a mixer grinder was responsible for the “accidental electrocution.” However, Prof Murugesan, now head, forensic department, Stanley GH, whose initial autopsy report too concurred with the version of the accused, was not included in the case.