Report No. 152

Chapter 7

Medical Examination

7.1. Beneficial and adverse aspect.-

The subject of medical examination has relevance to the malpractices committed during investigation, in the following two aspects:

(a) Medical examination of an arrested person may be useful as establishing the fact that certain injuries were inflicted on his body during custody. If undertaken immediately after arrest, it may be useful for establishing that at the time of arrest, there were no injuries on his body. This is the "beneficial aspect". Medical examination of a public servant accused of custodial rape is also important from the evidentiary angle and can equally be described as falling under the beneficial aspect.

(b) In contrast with the above, there is an adverse aspect of medical examination. At the time of, or during medical examination, malpractices may occur, particularly in the case of victims of sexual offences who offer themselves for medical examination. The law has to guard against this possibility also. Of course, the malpractice perpetrated on an alleged victim of sexual crime does not technically fall within "custodial" crime, but there have been cases of sexual crime on women in custody. We think it necessary to discuss various aspects of this topic.