July 11, 2019
While addressing to a petition seeking termination of pregnancy beyond 20 weeks; hon’ble Delhi High Court ordered that the right to terminate pregnancy cannot be refused only on the basis that the gestation period has continued beyond 20 weeks.
The hon’ble bench comprising of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice C Hari Shankar said, “It is difficult to refuse the permission to undergo medical termination of pregnancy in certain circumstances.”
The hon’ble bench referred to the judgment of the hon’ble Supreme Court in Tapasya Umesh Pisal v. Union of India & Ors. [(2017) AIR (SCW) 3931]. In this particular judgment, the Supreme Court allowed the termination of pregnancy because the foetus; if allowed to born, would have a limited life span with serious handicaps which cannot be avoided.
Section 3(2)(b) of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 states:
Where the length of the pregnancy exceeds twelve weeks but does not exceed twenty weeks; if not less than two registered medical practitioner are, of opinion, formed in good faith, that –
(i) Firstly, the continuance of the pregnancy would involve a risk to the life of the pregnant woman or of grave injury to her physical or mental health; or
(ii) Secondly, There is a substantial risk that if the child were born, it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities to be seriously handicapped.
Further, the bench opined that the provisions of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 have to be construed; as a part of cumulative dispensation and not isolated from each other. The court said that it is convinced that, even in a case where the condition of the foetus is, as in the instant case, incompatible with life; the rigor of Section- 3(2) deserves to be relaxed.