The Supreme court on Wednesday agreed to hear a fresh plea by a rape victim seeking termination of her 24-week pregnancy as there was a fatal risk to her as well as the foetus.
The petition filed by the woman, who said that she was raped by her ex-fiance on the false promise of marriage, sought a direction to quash section 3 (2)(b) of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, to the extent that it puts a ceiling of 20 weeks for an abortion as it is ultra vires to Article 14 and 21 of the Constitution.
Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves mentioned the petition before a bench of Justices A R Dave and L Nageswara Rao, who ordered for listing of the matter before the bench presided over by Justice Dipak Misra already hearing a similar petition.
Terming the ceiling as unreasonable, arbitrary, harsh, discriminatory and violative of the right to life and equality, the petitioner sought direction to the Centre for setting up an expert panel of doctors in hospitals to assess the pregnancy and offer medical termination of pregnancy (MTP) at least to those women and girls who were survivors of sexual violence and have passed the period of 20 weeks.
Published 20 July 2016, 19:49 IST