MADURAI: The Madurai Bench recently directed the state government to pay Rs 3 lakh compensation to a woman who gave birth to her fifth child despite undergoing a tubectomy in a primary health centre in Virudhunagar in 2014.
Justice N Anand Venkatesh, who passed the order, further directed the government to provide free education to the child, either in a government or private school, and pay Rs 10,000 monthly maintenance to the woman for the proper upbringing of the child, till he graduates or attains 21 years of age.
The petitioner, a 35-year-old woman from Madurai, approached the court in 2020. She submitted that she married a daily wage worker in 2007 and has four children. She had undergone tubectomy in the PHC in Narikudi on April 17, 2014, she added. However, on February 19, 2020, she came to know that she became pregnant again despite the surgery. Stating that she would not be able to deliver the child or support it financially, the woman requested the court to permit her to abort the child.
When the case once again came for hearing last month, Justice Venkatesh noted that while dealing with such cases in the past, the high court bench had ordered the government to provide free education and monthly maintenance to the newborn child. He therefore decided to give a similar relief to the petitioner and issued the above directions.