Citation

Sharma L, Khanagwal VP, Sirohiwal BL, Paliwal PK, Yadav DR. Internet J. Forensic Med. Toxicol. 2003; 4(2).

Copyright

(Copyright © 2003, Anil Aggrawal)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Usually the initial postmortem examination on bodies is carried out in India by Medical Officers in the periphery or by Forensic experts. This "referral" system is prevalent all over the country by which a medical officer refers a dead body to the nearest Forensic specialist/department if he/she cannot come to a definite opinion regarding cause of death. Many a times the medical officer, due to lack of Forensic knowledge, fails to see wounds or injuries on the body which would be a routine job for a forensic expert. Most of the referred cases coming to Forensic departments are due to extensive putrefaction of the body, however sometimes deliberate or unintentional overlooking of clearly visible injuries is done by the medical officers. This leads to travesty of justice to the dead person; relatives of the deceased then request for a re-postmortem. The results of the re-postmortem of the body usually has a totally different outcome than that of the first autopsy. In this paper is discussed a case report in which the medical officer at a district hospital conducted a postmortem examination on the dead body of a young man with the opinion that death was caused due to a railway accident. Later on the re-postmortem conducted in this department revealed a totally different story.

Language: en

Keywords

Referral; Second postmortem