The Gujarat High Court’s adjournment of a rape victim’s plea for the termination of her 26-week pregnancy met with disapproval from the Supreme Court on Saturday. The apex court expressed concern that the delay in addressing the matter had resulted in the loss of crucial time.

A special session on a Saturday saw Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan assert that cases of this nature demand urgency, criticising the High Court’s nonchalant approach of treating it as routine and simply postponing it.

The petitioner’s counsel informed the apex court that the 25-year-old woman had presented her case to the High Court on August 7, with the hearing scheduled for the following day.

On August 8, the High Court directed the establishment of a medical board to assess both the pregnancy’s status and the petitioner’s health.

The medical college where she was examined submitted the report on August 10.

Remarkably, the top court noted that the report was officially accepted by the high court on August 11, but the case was listed for hearing 12 days later on August 23. This scheduling oversight disregarded the significance of each day’s delay given the circumstances of the case.

Additionally, the petitioner’s counsel informed the SC bench l that while the High Court rejected the petition on August 17, the reasons behind the decision were not stated in court, and the order was still pending upload on the High Court’s website.

Consequently, the bench instructed the Supreme Court’s secretary general to communicate with the Registrar General of the Gujarat High Court and verify whether the contested order had been published. The petitioner was represented by advocate Vishal Arun Mishra in the apex court.

The petitioner’s counsel further explained to the bench that the woman was in her 26th week of pregnancy when the medical board was constituted. The bench questioned the purpose of postponing the case from August 11 to August 23 and the loss of valuable time in the interim.

The court observed that precious days had been squandered due to these delays. When the petitioner initially approached the high court seeking pregnancy termination, she was already 26 weeks pregnant. The apex court urged for a sense of urgency in handling such cases and criticized the casual approach of treating them as ordinary cases with routine adjournments.

The Supreme Court scheduled the case as the first item on the docket for August 21. Additionally, the bench summoned a response from the state government and relevant agencies regarding the plea.