Thaindian News

New Delhi, July 21 (IANS) In a significant judgement, the Supreme Court Tuesday stayed a Punjab and Haryana High Court ruling that had allowed authorities to force a mentally challenged rape victim to undergo an abortion.
A bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan scrapped a July 17 verdict of the high court ordering medical termination of the pregnancy of 19-year-old mentally challenged, unwed and orphan girl Radha (name changed), raped by a staff of the government shelter home in Chandigarh.

The bench, which also included Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice B.S. Chauhan said its “detailed reasoned order” would follow later.

The bench asked authorities to seek medical opinion if the woman does not run any risk, greater that what a normal pregnant woman has, to her own life and her unborn child in the process of carrying the pregnancy and subsequently in delivering the baby.

It cast aside the objection to the prospect of the mentally challenged girl delivering the baby when she is not able to take care of herself. “The nature has its own methodology,” it said.

The bench made it clear that in its detailed order, expected in a day or two, it would cast the responsibility of ensuring the welfare of the girl and her child on the Chandigarh administration, in whose custody she was when she was raped.

Counsel Anupam Gupta, appearing for Chandigarh administration, told the bench that the girl, whose mental age is barely nine years, might become her own child’s enemy and pose a grave danger to it and will face constant inconveniences in daily chores like feeding the baby and changing nappies.

Tanu Bedi, who approached the apex court on behalf of the rape victim, said: “For those reasons, you want to kill the child now.”

As Gupta and senior counsel Collin Gonsalves, appearing for the Chandigarh administration, told the court that it might be a traumatic experience for the girl to bring up the child and it might affect her mental health, Chief Justice Balakrishnan turned the argument on its head.

He said: “By the same logic, as the girl knows that she is going to have the baby and if it is aborted without her consent, she might face trauma impairing her mental health.”

Living in a government-run orphanage for women in Chandigarh, Radha became pregnant after a peon of the orphanage raped her.

When pregnancy was detected, the Chandigarh administration got her physical and mental condition evaluated medically and came to the conclusion that in her best interest, Radha, now approaching the critical 20th week of pregnancy, needs to have it medically aborted.

The administration sought the Punjab and Haryana High Court’ approval to the decision.

The high court gave its green signal July 17.

A group of young lawyers from Chandigarh approached the apex court Monday, challenging the move.

Bedi argued the country has no law which stops a woman from becoming a mother. She added that the fact that she is mentally challenged is not any legal ineligibility in becoming a mother.