Mumbai: The Mumbai Police Crime Branch team, investigating the suicide case of Dr Payal Tadvi, on Tuesday approached the Bombay High Court seeking custody of three senior doctors of the civic-run BYL Nair hospital. The trio has been booked for allegedly abetting the suicide of Dr Payal. This comes on the heels of the orders of a special court, which remanded the trio – Hema Ahuja, Ankita Khandelwal and Bhakti Mehere, to judicial custody till June 10. Aggrieved by this order, the Crime Branch has moved a bench of Justice Sambhaji Shinde seeking custody of the three doctors, for interrogation. The trio were arrested last week after the family of Dr Payal accused them of harassing and hurling casteist abuses at their daughter, as she belonged to a Scheduled Tribe (ST) category.
The Crime Branch, in its petition before Justice Shinde has said it did not had any opportunity to interrogate the three accused doctors as they were sent to judicial custody on the very day, when the agency was ordered to proceed with the probe in the case. It has accordingly challenged the orders of the special and has urged the HC to remand the trio back to police custody so that they can be interrogated. The main ground for seeking their custody, as per the Crime Branch is that it wants to ascertain if Dr Payal left back any suicide note, which is yet to be recovered by the police.
Having allowed the mentioning, the bench of Justice Shinde said it would be taking up the matter for hearing on June 6.Meanwhile, the three doctors have filed applications before the special court seeking bail. The court has however, adjourned the matter for hearing on June 10, when the prosecution has been asked to file their say in the matter. All the three doctors have been booked under provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, Anti-Ragging Act, Information Technology Act and section 306 (abetment of suicide) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
