Karnataka High Court criticises police for asking hospital to produce operation theatre equipment

Criticising the city police for what it termed as a “patent abuse of process”, the Karnataka High Court has quashed multiple notices issued to a private hospital for production of even operation theatre equipment and summoning several women staff in the absence of any First Information Report (FIR) but acting solely on an Unnatural Death Report (UDR), registered on the information furnished by the hospital itself.

“The tenor and sweep of these notices are startling. The police seek not merely records or documents but virtually the very machinery and equipment employed in the hospital. Compliance in the manner demanded would have had the inevitable consequence of paralysing the functioning of the hospital itself, thereby affecting not merely the petitioners but countless patients dependent upon the institution for medical care,” the court observed.