FACING POLICE SUMMONS

DOS AND DON’TS

DR. Lalit Kapoor

Occasionally you may get a Police summons due to a complaint by a patient who has suffered serious post-operative complications or by a relative following the death of a patient –operative or otherwise. Nowadays, the usual practice of the Police is to send a written summons, neatly typed on a computer in Marathi, instructing you to be present on a particular date and time. The letter does mention the name of the patient who has complained and the basic allegation e.g. having caused the death of a patient by negligence or caused grievous hurt, etc... Sometimes they summon you telephonically, in which case, you can ask them to send you a written communication.If they refuse to do this ask for the identity of the caller and even better, record the conversation.

Recently I came across 2 such cases. Being summoned by the Police always generates a good amount of fear and is depressing and demeaning.

 In order to mitigate the fear factor, I am presenting some Dos and Don’ts in such a situation.

1.     Do not avoid responding to the summons as this itself constitutes an offense and is actionable (sec 187 of IPC).

2.     Always have someone accompany you.

3.     At this stage the Police can only conduct an inquiry into the complaint. No FIR can be filed and no arrest can be made.

4.     Do not be defensive. Adopt a mental attitude that indicates your anguish at the patient having complained in spite of having done so much for the patient.

5.     The investigating officer  (IO) can  only do the following 3 things:

(i)   Take statements –from you, your assistants or staff, the patient, and/or relatives. Sticks to facts don’t give opinions.

(ii)  If you don’t the answer to some question say you don’t know.

(iii) May ask you for copies of your certificates –PG,   MMC reg., hosp licenses, etc.

(iv) Demand Case papers and treatment documents of the patient.

Precautions

1.     While handing case papers :

(i)                Preferably give only photocopies self-attested tho sometimes they insist on originals.

(ii) Make sure you have carefully gone through the case paper with a fine comb and ensure there are no omissions and importantly, any discrepancies. Once you hand over the case papers, obviously making additions or deletions is going to be a problem.

(iii) Number all pages serially and put your initials on each page.

(iv) Take receipt from whomever you hand over the papers.

(Original or photocopy). Have the number of pages handed over be recorded in the receipt. For example, “Received pages 1 – 45”.Subsequently, any missing pages, accidental or intentional can be then identified.

 

•  If you are a lady you can refuse to go to the Police station  between 6 pm and 6 am

• Frequently, it is insinuated by Police that you can be arrested and this could be avoided for a consideration. This is an attempt to put pressure on you by taking advantage of your ignorance of the law.

• Remember, this is only a preliminary inquiry which is all that the Police can do... The IO is supposed to forward all these papers to a Medical Board or Expert Committee (one of the members of which have to be of your specialty).

• These are usually sent to the Dean of a Govt hospital (e.g. J.J.Hospital in Mumbai) or the local Civil Surgeon in a District place, as the case may be.

• If a post-mortem has been done, the final report along with the chemical analysis and histopathology report has to be awaited before sending for expert opinion.

• This report may take several weeks or months to reach the Police station. Hence, contrary to your fear, no Police action can happen instantly

       After the Report comes:

(i)   If the report indicates no negligence, the Police are supposed to close your file.

(ii) If the report indicates negligence on your part, the Police files an FIR against you and prepares a charge sheet which it submits in the court.

(iii)You are charged under some specific section (s) In case of death of a patient the usual section applied is 304A (Causing death due to rash and negligent act. In this section, you can get bail as a matter of right and the arrest is a “Paper arrest”

Following which the case keeps going on in the local court and you have enough time to produce evidence and expert witnesses to establish your innocence, Time frame 8-10years.

 

(1v) Rarely, some non- bailable sections (like 304 part II –culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and this situation has to be appropriately dealt with by applying for anticipatory bail etc) and we need to appoint a competent lawyer at the earliest, but we will not go into it at the present time.