Road accident cases: Good days ahead for Good Samaritans

NEW DELHI: In a move that will protect 'Good Samaritans' and encourage bystanders to rush road accident victims to the nearest hospital or inform the police, a Supreme Court appointed committee has recommended that such people should not be subjected to civil and criminal liability. Moreover, they should not be forced to disclose their identity and should not be called to appear for court hearings.

The recommendations by K Skandan Committee to the Supreme Court also mentions that any doctor refusing to attend or treat a road accident victim must face disciplinary action as per the norms laid down under the Medical Council of India (MCI) guidelines. The panel has suggested that all hospitals must admit such victims and the person accompanying the injured should not be detained by the hospital authority and authorities should not ask them for registration. There can be exception only in case the accompanying person is a family member of the victim.

According to the report, to ensure that all hospitals including private ones comply, the health ministry will issue guidelines which will have to be implemented within two months. If hospitals fail to do so, their licences can be revoked.

Moreover, there is a suggestion that hospitals should make public the charter on providing such services and if a good samaritan asks for an acknowledgement of his service then hospitals will provide such document or receipts.

Government sources said that both the road transport ministry and law ministry have accepted the report thereby paving the way for the country to get the first set of guidelines to protect good samaritans. The Supreme Court will hold a hearing on this next week and in all probability it may lay down the guidelines.

The Skandan committee has also recommended that in certain cases where the good samaritans are needed as witness there should be a system of video conferencing rather than calling such people to appear in the court in person.

It has also spelt out clearly that disciplinary actions should be initiated against police officers if there are complaints by good samaritans that they are being harassed or intimidated.

Nevertheless, the SC-appointed panel has also dealt in details with the infrastructure and other facilities that the governments should provide for quick transport of crash victims and for their proper treatment. While it has pitched for highway police across the country to man both national and state highways, it has recommended creating a corpus of Rs 1000 crore to take care of crash victims in hospitals.

"Doctors point out that at least 50% of the fatalities can be averted if victims are admitted to a hospital within the first one hour," a 201 report of the Law Commission report had highlighted.

Annually 1.37 lakh people die on our roads and the number of injured is around 5 lakh.