Two doctors, including a public service, are facing action by the Tamil Nadu medical council for issuing fake "life certificates" of people who had passed away.
According to Tamil Nadu Medical Council, a lady doctor Dr R. Shanthini, who is serving as Assistant Surgeon with the Royapettah Government Hospital, Chennai issued a life certificate for R. Krishnakumar on January 10, 2018. The man had committed suicide in July, 2015.
Krishnakumar's wife lodged a complaint with the medical council of Tamil Nadu that the property in his name was sold by his relatives two days after the Government doctor issued "life certificate" for her husband. While his wife was the legal heir, the property was sold by his relatives using the "fake" certificate.
In another incident, R. Vinoth Kumar of Bangalore filed a complaint with the medical council of Tamil Nadu that Dr K.P. Badriprasad who has a private clinic in Hosur, conspired with one Narasimhan and issued "life certificates" to two women, Sabitha. J and Shylaja Jayasurya, a year after the Bruthat Bengaluru Mahanagare Palike(BBMP) issued their death certificates.
While Sabitha passed away on October 16, 2019, her mother Shylaja died on July 18, 2020. However, according to the complainant, Dr Badriprasad issued their "life certificates" on September 7, 2020.
The complainant, in the petition, said that the certificates were used for registration of documents based on a power of attorney.
The Tamil Nadu Medical council president Dr K. Senthil issued notices to both the doctors. Dr Senthil, while speaking to IANS said, "These complaints come under misconduct and are gross violations of TN Medical Council code of ethics (professional etiquettes and ethics)".
In his reply to the Medical council, Dr Badriprasad said that he was cheated and conned by one Narasimhan who had brought two look-like women to his clinic. He said that due to the pandemic, he was using a face mask and the women were at a distance of six feet. In between, there was a plastic partition and hence he was not able to recognise the women at that distance properly.
Dr Senthil said that the Tamil Nadu Medical Council is planning to conduct awareness programmes for doctors on such matters of issuing fake "life certificates" to dead people and said that other than losing their license to practice, they may be charged with criminal cases also.