A 13-year-old rape survivor from Mumbai was granted permission by the Supreme Court (SC)on Wednesday to medically terminate her seven-month-old pregnancy, after considering a medical opinion of doctors.
The girl was allegedly raped by her father’s business partner. The accused is in Mumbai police custody.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices Amitava Roy and AM Khanwilkar examined the medical report filed by a board of doctors of JJ hospital, Mumbai, set up by the court, and granted the permission for termination of pregnancy.
According to sources, the court asked the hospital authorities to conduct the termination of pregnancy on8 September. “The girl would be admitted to the hospital a day before,” reports said.
A petition was filed by the girl’s parents, seeking permission from the apex court for medical termination of her pregnancy, after they realised the reason of her obesity was not thyroid but pregnancy.
According to police sources, until that moment, she had not informed her parents about the sexual assault.
The 13-year-old’s family resides in Charkop, Mumbai. Her father is a street vendor while mother is a homemaker.On August 13, she was released from Asha Dan shelter home in Byculla.
The 23-year-old accused lived with the girl’s family in Charkop and is suspected to have raped the girl on multiple occasions.
In August, a 10-year-old rape survivor from Chandigarh was denied permission by the SC to terminate her pregnancy as courts allow medical termination of pregnancy up to 20 weeks under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act and only make an exception if the foetus is genetically abnormal.