The Bombay High Court on Thursday denied the Mumbai Police Crime Branch full custody of three doctors accused of abetting the suicide of medical student Payal Tadvi, The Hindu reported.
Justice SS Shinde granted partial custody of Hema Ahuja, Bhakti Mehere and Ankita Khandelwal. The court has allowed the Crime Branch to question them on Thursday from 2 pm to 6 pm and then from Friday till Sunday from 9 am to 6 pm.
The accused third-year resident doctors can be interrogated in the crime branch unit and have to be sent back to jail before 6 pm, the high court added, according to The Indian Express.
On May 31, a special court had remanded the three doctors to judicial custody till June 10. They were in police custody till May 31.
The Mumbai Police Crime Branch approached the Bombay High Court on June 4, seeking custody of the three doctors. The investigation was handed over to the Mumbai Police Crime Branch on May 30.
Tadvi, who belonged to the Bhil Adivasi community, committed suicide on May 22 after allegedly facing casteist abuse from the accused at the Topiwala National Medical College in Mumbai, where she worked.
The three doctors denied the accusations in a letter to the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors, and demanded a “fair inquiry”. The association, however, suspended them on the basis of findings of a preliminary investigation. The state health department’s anti-ragging committee has found prima facie evidence that Tadvi faced casteist abuse.
Tadvi’s autopsy report stated “evidence of ligature mark over the neck”. The counsel for Tadvi’s family, Nitin Satpute, alleged she had been murdered. “From the circumstances of her death and bruise mark on her body, we can say that it must be a case of murder and not of suicide,” he had said.
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