Delhi HC Orders Fresh, Recorded Post-Mortem of Mukul Arya After Mother Alleges Foul Play: The Delhi high court on Thursday allowed a plea by the mother of India’s deceased representative to Palestine Mukul Arya seeking a fresh post mortem of her son, who was recently found dead inside the Indian mission in Ramallah, and directed that the process be video-graphed. The Centre told Justice Rajnish Bhatnagar that the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) is facilitating the autopsy at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) as desired by the family.Lawyer Anurag Ahluwalia, representing the Centre, said more than the petitioner, we are concerned and the authorities were thus not opposing the plea seeking another post-mortem and that there was no foul play in the death. Senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, appearing for Mukul Arya’s mother Roshan Lata Arya, emphasised that the deceased officer suffered an unnatural death and urged the court to allow either the family members or their representatives to be present during the autopsy procedure. Justice Bhatnagar said he would permit the autopsy to be carried out as per the norms and be video-recorded. “He is an Indian official. Everyone is concerned,” the judge told the petitioner. The senior counsel for the petitioner stated that at this stage, he was not pressing the other prayer seeking the constitution of a commission to inquire into the suspicious circumstances under which Arya died. “Prayer 1 (seeking autopsy) is allowed. Post mortem be video-graphed and made part of the record,” the court ordered. In the petition filed through lawyer Nitin Saluja, the 65-year-old petitioner sought a direction to the central government to immediately constitute a panel of doctors from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) for conducting a fresh post mortem on her deceased son in the presence of the family. Arya, 37, was a career diplomat who served at the Ministry of External Affairs in Delhi, in addition to serving at the Permanent Delegation of India to UNESCO in Paris and at the Embassies of India in Kabul and Moscow. He was raised and educated in Delhi, studied Economics at Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University, before joining the Indian Foreign Service in 2008, according to the website of the Representative Office of India in Ramallah, Palestine.
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