PANAJI [GOA]

1. Name & Location of Association:

The name of the Association shall be, "The Indian Academy of Forensic Medicine".

The Registered office i.e. the headquarter of the Association shall be located in the dwelling city of General Secretary of Academy.

2. Object of the Association:

1. To encourage the study, improve the practice, elevate the standards and promote the progress of Forensic Medicine.
2. The highlight importance and raise the standard of Medicolegal works in relation to administration of justice.
3. To cooperate with other scientific Associations.
4. To encourage and publish important research in all branches of Forensic Medicine.
5. To represent internationally the research work carried out Forensic Medicine in India.
6. To advise Central Government/State/Union Territory Administration and other Government bodies on matters pertaining to Forensic Medicine.
7. To organize and arrange meetings and symposia on Forensic Medicine and allied subjects.
8. To serve and administer funds, grants, endowments for the furtherance of research in Forensic Medicine.
9. To own and acquire, administer and dispose Properties moveable and immovable of the Academy.

1. The Academy shall not make any project nor award bonus to any of its members but may pay remuneration to the members of its permanent staff. In addition, it may award prizes for research grants to individuals and organizations for the advancement of Forensic Medicine.

1. Who are actively engaged in the field of Forensic Medicine and who have made significant contribution to the literature of Forensic Medicine; or
2. Who have advanced the cause of Forensic Medicine in some other significant manner; or
3. Who pursue a career which has a direct or indirect bearing on the aims and objects of the Academy (see chapter IV for the eligibility of membership).

1. Members.

Members : Any qualified Medical person who is engaged actively in the field of Forensic Medicine or medico Legal work and has interest in the objectives and purposes of the Academy is eligible to a member of the Academy.

2. Fellows.
3. Honorary Fellows.

Section II

As hereinafter used the term member shall refer to any one in the foregoing classification of membership.All the members with the exception of Hon'y fellows shall have the voting write.

Section III

All applications in prescribed forms shall be submitted to the Secretary who will place them before the next meeting of the Council, which will take decision regarding admission to membership.

Section IV

The Council will consider all the requests and applications received and elect fellows and members.

Chapter II

Administration and Management

Section V

1. The administration, direction and management of the affairs of the Academy shall be entrusted to a Council composed of the Office bearers of the Academy, namely President Immediate past President, There Vice Presidents, and General Secretary, Two Jt. Secretaries, One Treasurer, One Editor and One Joint Editor and Eleven Members.
2. The officers elected at the Annual General meeting shall hold for two years, or until their successors shall have been elected and assumed office.
3. Office bearers and members of the Council shall be elected from the amongst the members of the Academy.
4. No Office will hold post for more than two consecutive term. Not more than one of the Office President, Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer shall be held by the same individual.
5. The quorum of the Council meeting shall consist of five members and any resolution of the Council shall not be passed unless motion shall have four assenting votes.
6. If the President is absent at the time of meeting, powers and duties shall exercised and performed by one of the Vice-Presidents.
7. If the Office of the Council, the President shall designate one of the Jt. Secretaries or a member of Council to exercise the powers and perform duties of General Secretary until the next meeting of the Council.
8. If the General Secretary is absent from any meeting of the Academy or of the Council, the Chairman of the meeting may designate one of the Jt. Secretaries or a member of the Council to perform the duties of the General Secretary at that meeting.

1. To manage of affairs of the Academy and for each purpose to make such regulations as may to them appear conducive to the good administration of the academy and the attainment of the objects of its foundation provided always that such Regulations not inconsistent with any thing contained in these rules, that they be reported to the next Annual General Meeting for the information of the members and that they be subject to recession, or alteration by the General Meeting.
2. To consider in the first instance, all communications addressed to the Academy, to decide which of such communications shall be submitted to the General Meeting, and to determine the order and manner of such submission.
3. To superintend and direct all the publications of the Academy.
4. To appoint as may salaried Officers, clerks, or servants as they may deem necessary to define their duties, allowances, salaries, gratitude's and privileges and to suspend or dismiss them, or dispense with their services as occasion may require and to report all such actions to the next General Meeting.
5. To prepare and submit to the Annual General Meeting a report on the general concerns of the Academy. Such reports shall set forth the income and expenditure of the Financial year of the Academy, the balance in hand, the debts and assets, the estimated income and expenditure of the Financial year of the Academy, the balance in hand, the debts and assess, the estimated income and expenditure of succeeding year and general progress of the Academy. The report shall also include an abstract of the proceedings of the Council during the year.
6. The Council shall be empowered, subject to sanction of an ordinary general meeting, to take legal proceedings under the act for the recovery of any sums due from a member on account of subscription, books, manuscripts or any other property of the Academy, in case any member after receiving due notice of his liabilities, shall refuse or fail to discharge them.
7. To arrange for the establishment of reciprocal relations between the Academy and other learned bodies in India & Abroad.
8. To constitute and control such administrative and specialist committees as may be required to facilitate the work of the Academy.

1. To preside on all meetings of the Academy and of the Council and to regulate the proceedings of such meetings.
2. To assure due effect being given to the rules of the Academy and to the Regulations made by the Council under section VI (a).
3. To be ex-officio-member of all committees appointed by the Council. In case of emergency to take any such action as he deem fit in the light of circumstances and report and approval of Executive Council at its next meeting.

1. To conduct correspondence of the Academy and to sign letters and papers emanating from the Academy.
2. To attend the Meetings of the Academy and of the Council, to keep a record of the proceedings of the such meetings during their progress, and at the commencement of every such meetings to read out the minutes of the previous meetings unless they are taken as read with the consent of the Chairmen.
3. To prepare for submission to the Annual General Meetings a list of members, corrected to the close of previous years.
4. To enter or cause to be entered in the minutes book all the proceedings of the Academy and of the Council before the following meetings and to see that all letters and papers, and documents of every kind connected with the business of the Academy are properly filed and preserved.
5. To be ex-Officio-member of all the Committees appointed by the Council.

1. The Treasurer shall receive and hold for the use of the Academy all moneys paid to the Academy. He shall disburse all sums due from the Academy and shall keep exact accounts of such receipts and payments. Disbursements exceeding Rs. 100/- shall be made only by order of the Council under signatures of the Chairman of meeting at which the order was passed.
2. The treasurer shall be responsible for the preparation of Annual statement of accounts and of the budget and for the presentation there of to the Council.
3. He shall be the ex-Officio-member of all the committees constituted by the Council.

Section X

Meeting of the Academy

General Meeting of the Academy shall be of the following kind namely:

1. Annual General Meeting including Scientific Program.

2. Extraordinary General Meeting.

3. Zonal Meeting.

4. Other Scientific Meetings.

Scientific Meetings, social functions and the business session of the Academy shall be open to all the members.

Funds for meetings, the expenses of the Academy and its Zonal branches shall be raised by Annual subscriptions and donations and grants.

The subscription of a member falls due on the First of January every year. If any member fails to pay the subscription by 31st, December, of the succeeding year, the Council may at its discretion remove his mane from the list of members. The Council at its discretion may readmit the defaulting members without payment of admission fee.

Section XV

The Financial year of this Academy shall be from January to December inclusive.

Section XVI

The expenses for carrying the function of the Zonal branches for holding Scientific meetings, symposium etc. shall be mainly by the additional Zonal collection on behalf of the Council after the expressed consent of the General Secretary of the Council.

Chapter IV

Eligibility of membership and rate of Annual subscription and admission fee.

Section XVII

The membership of the Academy is open to:

1. Medical Staff of the Forensic Medicine Deptt. of all undergraduates and post graduate Medical Institutions.
2. All Medical Officers engaged in the Medico Legal work.
3. Forensic Psychiatrists.
4. Forensic Serologists.
5. Members of Medical Profession interested in any branch of Forensic Medicine, although not directly engaged in Medico Legal practice.

The minimum academic qualifications required for members shall be a degree in Medicine. The candidate should not be below 21 years of age. the Council may however elect in exceptional cases persons not coming under any of the above categories.

Section XIX

The annual subscription shall be Rs. 20/- with an admission fee of Rs. 10/- for all categories of member with the exception of Hon. Fellows.

Any member could become a life member and be exempted from payment of all feature subscriptions by the payment of lump sum of Rs. 300/- (Rupees three hundred only).

Section XX

If upon dissolution of the Association there shall remain, after the satisfaction of all its debts and liabilities, any property whatsoever, the same shall not be paid or the distributed amongst the members of the Association or any of them, but shall be given to some other Society having similar aim and objects to be determined by the votes of not less than 3/5th of the members present personally or in default thereof, by such court as aforesaid.

Section XXI

All provisions of the "Registration of Societies Order" Govt, of Gova, Daman & Diu will apply to this Academy also.

Section XXII

Loan shall be interest free, and when a loan is repaid, the repayment shall be Treated as income of the Society in the years of its receipt and shall be applied fully for the objects of the Society.

Section XXIII

The Academy will accept and receive in any manner whatsoever any cash immovable or movable property either unconditionally or subject to any special trust created by any particular donor in furtherance of any one or more of the objects of the Society, provided that donations under the clause shall not in any way be but of the purview of the Section 2 (15) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 and Section 80 (6) of Income-tax Act, 1961.

In 1973 a survey was conducted by the Police Research and Development Bureau of the crimes in India Madhya Pradesh figures prominently on the Crime Map of India. The survey showed that MP was third in the number of crimes committed in the country after Uttar Pradesh which tops the list, and Maharashtra which comes next to it. The crime rate registered in Madhya Pradesh was 215 per lakh of population, whereas it was 255 & 240 in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra respectively. Among the various categories of crimes committed, Madhya Pradesh was second only to Uttar Pradesh in burglaries, and in criminal assault on the fair sex it was third, the first two places going to Nagaland and Meghalaya.

Science of Forensic Medicine can be said to be still in its infancy in India. The people at large do not seem to have much idea of the scope of the subject. I can say that till recently even the medical profession did not pay much attention to this branch of medicine. Similarly, the Police were also not aware of the vast possibilities of the help they could derive from forensic medicine and the experts who can really make the dead tell tales. I have often been asked by my friends in the various walks of life as to the actual scope of this science and that has necessitated the writing of this short article.

Every criminal leaves behind some traces on the spot of crime. The various scientific methods made use of to draw conclusion by examining these traces etc. are broadly called Forensic Science. It has been a very broad field indeed and is looked after by people from various disciplines of scene. The result of their analysis helps to establish the truth because it is truly said that 'Man lie but circumstances do not and it is the job of the forensic scientists to interpret these circumstances by infallible scientific methods. The forensic scientist is neither for the prosecution nor for the defense but only for the truth. When knowledge of medical science is applied to injuries inflicted on human beings by transgressing law, such knowledge falls in the domain of forensic medicine.

When the history of the medical profession in India is written we shall have to blush at the fact that the field of forensic medicine was neglected by the medical profession for a long time. High power committees like the Bhora Committee 19467 and the Mudaliar Committee 1962 confined themselves only to health survey. It was in 1957 that the Government of India realized that the medico-legal practices in India required to be improved to render better aid in the cause of justice and, therefore constituted a Central Medico-legal Advisory Committee. In their report submitted in 1964 the committee came to the conclusion that a lot needs to be done to improve the medico-legal practices in the country. They clearly brought out that absence of well trained and competent medico-legal advice could frustrate the ends of justice and could lead to the escape of criminals or still worse conviction of innocent persons. Apart from the law which Governs the physicians conduct in the physician patient relationship, their obligation and responsibilities in medico-legal cases is of utmost importance because it involves the liberty of human-beings which was at stake.

To implement the recommendations of the Committee referred to earlier the Government of Madhya Pradesh have created a full-fledged Forensic Medicine Department under a Professor in the Gandhi Medical College, Bhopal. It has earned high praise and is recognized by the Medical Council of India for M.D. and Diploma in Forensic Medicine Course. A plan to impart advance medico-legal training to the Medical Officers in Madhya Pradesh has been drawn up and would be implemented soon.

In the last few years we have had a number of very interesting and complicated cases. Unraveling of mysteries in those cases involved a lot of study and experimentation. I easily recall a few interesting cases. There was the case of one Bakhelal who was shot dead in broad day light in the hospital compound of Bari village by one Chandan Singh. The defense of the accused that he fired at the deceased in self defense was shattered by our expert testimony on the bases of S-ray photographs that at the time the deceased was shot he was actually not facing the assailant. This corroborated the evidence of the eye witness and the learned Session Judge convicted the accused to the sentence of hanging. On appeal to the High Court the conviction was mentioned though the sentence was changed to one of imprisonment. The accused went to the Supreme Court in vain. In another case a young girl of 16 years of age disappeared from her house and the next day her dead body was found in a nearby well. The local Doctor who held the post-mortem considered it to be a case of asphyxia as a result of drowning. The poor girl had also been raped before her death and the inference drawn was that she might have committed suicide out of shame. However, the C.I.D. had its doubts and referred the case to us. The post-mortem report etc. were critically analyzed and we came