Parents refuse to take ill baby home

Jan 06, 2011 - Age Correspondent |

New Delhi

Despite a committee of doctors recommending that the infant abandoned by parents at St. Stephen’s Hospital can be taken back home and looked after, they refuse to take back the child. The parents apparently want that the health problems of the child are treated before they take him back. The Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) is now of the view that criminal action should be initiated against the parents for abandoning the child.

DCPCR chairperson Amod Kanth said that the parents were free to take whatever legal or medical action they want to take but there was no way they could do so while leaving the child abandoned. “Criminal liability under Section 317 (exposure and abandonment of child under 12 years, by parent or person having care of it) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 23 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection), 2000, is made out. We will inform the police in this regard,” said Mr Kanth.
The infant, named Chiku, was born at St. Stephen’s Hospital six months ago. The doctors told the parents that the child was having some complications and there was risk that his brain may develop slowly. The parents then refused to take the child back home and they simply stopped coming to attend to their child later on. Subsequently, they even stopped taking phone calls from the hospital.

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