Madras High Court commutes death penalty of father who raped daughter; orders doctors not to perform ‘two-finger test’

The Madras High Court recently reminded medical professionals that the Supreme Court has prohibited the two-finger test on survivors of sexual assault and said that those doctors still performing such test will be held “guilty of misconduct.”.A bench of Justices SS Sunder and Sunder Mohan made the observation while hearing an appeal filed by a man convicted and sentenced to death by a local court for having raped and physically assaulted his minor daughter repeatedly for years. During the hearing, the bench came across a medical examination report that stated that the two-finger test had been conducted by the doctors at a government hospital in Chennai on the survivor..While the Court allowed the appeal and commuted the death sentence to a life term, the Court also went on to berate the conduct of the doctors who had medically examined the survivor in the case.The Court reminded all medical practitioners that the Supreme Court had clearly held that medical procedures should not be performed in any way that constitutes cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment..“However, we notice regrettably that two finger test had been conducted in the instant case, though the Hon'ble Supreme Court and this Court in several cases have repeatedly held that such a test is neither acceptable nor desirable to ascertain whether the victim was subjected to sexual intercourse. We take this opportunity to remind the Doctors that if they conduct any test in contravention of the directions of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the State of Jharkhand Vs. Shailender Kumar @ Pandav Rai, reported in (2022) 14 SCC 289, they shall be guilty of misconduct as held by the Hon'ble Supreme Court,” the High Court said.The Court, however, commuted the death penalty to life sentence saying that while the case was barbaric, it did not fit into the “rarest of rare” category warranting capital punishment for the convicts..State Public Prosecutor Hasan Mohammed Jinnah, and advocates JR Archana, M Sumi Arnice, and A Sahana Fathima appeared for the State government in the referred trial.Senior counsel R Rajarathinam and Abudukumar Rajarathinam and advocates A Ashwinkumar and S Ashok Kumar appeared for the State in the appeal filed by the convict..[Read Judgement]