The Madras High Court in the case Dr. Mohamed Khader Meeran A.S v. State of Tamil Nadu observed and has recently sought the response of the Central and the State government on a plea seeking computerisation of medical records having legal importance, including postmortem report, injury report/ accident, etc.
The bench comprising of Chief Justice T Raja and Justice D Krishnakumar heard the case.
It was submitted by the petitioner, Dr Mohammed Khader Meeran that Medico Legal Examination and Postmortem Reporting (MedLeaPR) is a software developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) to issue various medico-legal reports and certificates digitally and to store the data in cloud storage in the encrypted form. Presently, the software is being used by many states and union territories in the country.
It was also directed by Madras High Court to implement this software in the state of Tamil Nadu by January 1st 2021. Thus, even though more than an year has passed, no effort has been made by any authority to implement the same, it was averred. The petitioner added that there is no standard proforma that exists in the State.
It was also contended by him that the present proforma is not at all at par with the standards prescribed by the Supreme Court in the case Samira Kohli Vs Dr. Prabha Manchanda And Anr., Civil Appeal No.1949 of 2004.
Further, the petitioner also submitted that documents like Injury Report, Post-Mortem Report (including viscera/chemical analysis report), report of examination after Sexual assault, age estimation reports have legal importance. However, if these are computerised, it would increase the efficiency of hospital administration, governments and the judiciary also.
The petitioner seek directions from the court to implement this software in all the Government hospitals.