The committee was set up after Home Minister Gopinath Munde announced in November 1998 that the three coroners' courts -- JJ hospital in south Mumbai, Rajawadi hospital in Ghatkopar (E) and Cooper hospital in Vile Parle (W) -- will be abolished. The committee under the chairmanship of additional chief secretary (home) K Srivasta was asked to suggest alternative arrangements for expediting autopsy examinations. It submitted its report to the state government last week.

At present the three coroners courts which are also medico-legal centres carry out autopsies to determine the cause of death, especially in cases where effort has been made to show that the person has died of natural causes. Other findings also help investigating agencies in solving crime related deaths, according to a medical expert.

However, eachcoroner's court has to undertake post-mortem examination of nearly 10 bodies every day and they find their infrastructure inadequate to handle these cases leading to painful delays. Relatives of the deceased complain of harassment by the staff at the coroners' courts. The family members also suffer the ordeal of waiting till the police finish with their inquest panchnama followed by the autopsy. They are also forced to bribe several officials before getting the possession of the body, sources said.

Following increasing reports of delays in releasing bodies and harassment the government decided to set up the experts' committee. The committee proposed setting up of autopsy examination facilities at following centres: JJ Hospital and its three peripheral hospitals; KEM hospital at Parel, LTMG hospital at Sion and BYL Nair at Mumbai Central; Bhagwati hospital at Borivli, Cooper hospital at Vile Parle, Rajawadi at Ghatkopar, Shatabdi hospital at Kandivli; Siddharth hospital at Goregaon; Govandi hospital atChembur and Kannamwar Nagar hospital at Vikhroli.

The panel stated that necessary equipment need be provided and required staff posted at these centres for conducting autopsy examination which is estimated to cost Rs 62 lakh and all these centres will be placed under the supervision of state police surgeon, the report added.

Other members of the experts' committee are Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's executive health officer Dr Alka Karande, Dean of KEM hospital Dr Pragnya Pai, Commissioner of Police R H Mendonca, state Director of Medical Education and Research Dr V L Deshpande and state Police Surgeon Dr G V Uppe.