Profile of Forensic Autopsy Cases Conducted by Boards/Panel from Delhi, India

The term board means a committee of persons organized under the authority of law to exercise certain authorities, have oversight or control of certain matters, or discharge certain functions of a magisterial, representative, or fiduciary character. Among forensic cases which may be pertaining to clinical forensic medicine or in case of doubtful death, such medical boards are now becoming quite prevalent in India. There is paucity of data related to profile of such cases both from India and other parts of world. Therefore a study was planned and executed to analyze the cases pertaining to forensic autopsies conducted by medical boards in capital city of Delhi. This is a descriptive retrospective study based upon the data retrieved from the departmental records of Forensic medicine belonging to a tertiary care medical teaching institution located in East Delhi, India for three years consecutive period from January 2015 to December 2017. A cluster of 70 such case that fit in the inclusion criteria were inducted in the study and analyzed. The mean age of such cases was 30.5 years, with male: female ratio of 7:2. The prominent reasons for constitution of medical boards were allegation of medical negligence and custodial deaths (both judicial and police). In more than 1/3rd of cases the cause of death established by medical board was natural. There is an increasing tendency for constitution of boards for conduction of forensic autopsies in state of Delhi despite lack of provision in law of land.