Justice Abhilasha Kumari refused permission on the ground that the existing law does not allow termination of pregnancy after 20 weeks.
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The father’s petition said his daughter became pregnant after she visited a doctor who injected her with sedatives and then raped her in February. The doctor gave her an injection to sedate her and raped her in his clinic. “The parents are yet to decide if they want to approach higher forum”, the teenager’s lawyer, Pradip Bhate, told AFP.
“The father of the victim is a labourer and does not have enough resources to take care of the child to be born…”
The doctor has since been arrested by police and is being held in custody. They are still considering taking the case to a higher court. In this case, the pregnancy was in the 24th week.
This is the second such case in four months in the state wherein a rape survivor unsuccessfully knocked on the HC’s doors for abortion. However, the Sessions Court rejected the petition as the pregnancy had crossed 20 weeks.
The HC ordered the government to pay Rs 1 lakh to the survivor and directed the Sabarkantha district collector to ensure proper diet and medical facilities for the girl and to ensure safe delivery of child. The child would likely be given up for adoption with the aid of local NGOs. She too had exceeded the 20-week limit on abortion. She delivered the child but refused to accept the newborn which was taken into the government’s custody the day it was born. “I am conscious of the fact that for a woman to carry a child in her womb as a result of conception through an act of rape is not only extremely traumatic for her but humiliating, frightening and psychologically devastating and as a human being, more particularly in the Indian society she becomes an object of scorn and ostracization”.
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The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) found that 33,707 women reported being raped in 2013. The judge specifically mentioned that the girl’s education must continue.
