Give priority to victim's life: Supreme Court guidelines

The Supreme Court has issued several guidelines to ensure that accident victims receive timely help.

Saving the life of the victim should be the top priority of the doctors, police as well as all concerned people.

In the case of Pt Parmanand Katara vs Union of India in Criminal Writ Petition No. 270 of 1988, the Supreme Court observed, “Every injured citizen brought for medical treatment should instantaneously be given medical aid to preserve life and thereafter, the procedural criminal law should be allowed to operate in order to avoid negligent death. There is no legal impediment for a medical professional when he is called upon or requested to attend to an injured person needing his medical assistance immediately.

The effort to save the person should be the top priority not only of the medical professional but even of the police or any other citizen who happens to be connected with that matter or notices such an incident or a situation.”

Later, an NGO, Save Life Foundation, filed a public interest litigation stating that just like medical professionals, bystanders or good Samaritans should be protected under the law and saved from legal hassles to encourage people to give timely help to accident victims. While the Supreme Court said that the identity of such people cannot remain secret and they can’t be spared from being witnesses in the cases, it did exhort state governments to devise ways on minimising legal hassles to encourage more people to come forward for accident victims.