Bombay High Court: A Division Bench comprising of Ranjit More and Prakash D. Naik, JJ. heard a petition requesting termination of pregnancy of the petitioner’s daughter who was a victim of rape and was running into 27 weeks of pregnancy on the grounds that continuation of pregnancy would cause grave injury to the victim.
Relying on the medical report submitted by the Assistant Public Prosecutor which stated that “the petitioner’s daughter should be directed to continue pregnancy with medical and psychological support” and also on Section 3 of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, the Court refused to interfere and dismissed the petition.
Section 3 of the MTP Act, 1971 states that a pregnancy may be terminated where the length of a pregnancy exceeds 12 weeks (before which a medical practitioner is permitted to terminate a pregnancy) but not 20 weeks, and at least two registered medical practitioners must be of the opinion, formed in good faith, that the continuation of the pregnancy would gravely injure the woman’s physical or emotional health. The Explanation provides that if the pregnancy has been caused by rape, the anguish caused by such a pregnancy would constitute grave injury to mental health of the woman. [Danbahadur Rajkaram Yadav v. State of Maharashtra, 2017 SCC OnLine Bom 8900, order dated 13.10.2017]
