Sometimes, to give peace to the living, the dead would have to be disturbed, says Madras High Court

The Madras High Court witnessed a poignant moment on Wednesday (October 14, 2026) when a couple waited with bated breath to know the results of DNA profiling done by exhuming a body from a burial ground in Erode city but broke down when they heard the judge read that the test confirmed the body to be of their son who was studying at National Institute of Technology (NIT), Rourkela.

Justice V. Lakshminarayanan felt it very difficult to tell the parents that the DNA extracted from the femur of the body had matched with the DNA from their blood samples. It was a tough moment for everyone in the court hall, including Additional Public Prosecutor Arun Anbumani, to see the disappointment on the face of the parents who expected the results to be otherwise.

According to a writ petition filed by the youngster’s father, a native of Erode residing in Chennai at present, his family was informed about their son having died in a road accident in Odisha on February 28, 2026. A postmortem was conducted at a sub divisional hospital in Bonai in Sundargarh district of Odisha and then the body was sent for burial to Tamil Nadu.

It was interred at a corporation burial ground in Erode on March 2, 2026. Subsequently, the parents received the postmortem report which stated that the body had all 16 teeth intact in each jaw. The couple were shocked to read the report because the third molars (wisdom teeth) of their son had been removed on three different dates between May 29 and July 1, 2024.

Further, there was no mention in the postmortem report about the injuries that their son had suffered near his eyes and below the eyebrows on account of an accident while playing cricket in January 2025. They said, he had undergone a minor surgery for those injuries and those scars were very much visible. The youngster’s mother also said, the shape of the ears of the dead body did not appear to be that of her son’s ears.

While directing the police to exhume the body for DNA profiling, Justice Lakshminarayanan wrote: “Though law looks against exhumation of bodies, sometimes, in order to give peace to the living, the dead would have to be disturbed. The mother thinks that her son is still alive... If the DNA profiling is done, there is a possibility that it would give peace of mind, which eludes the parents as of now.”

Pursuant to the directions issued by the court, the body was exhumed under the supervision of the government doctors in Erode and the DNA was extracted from the femur bone. The Regional Forensic Sciences Laboratory in Chennai gave priority to the DNA profiling test on the basis of the directions issued by the court and submitted its report to the court on Wednesday.

After advising the parents that they may require counselling to overcome the loss of their son, the judge directed the High Court Registry to issue a certified copy of the DNA profiling report to them. The couple required the report for being communicated to the authorities in the United States because their son was an American citizen by birth. He was pursuing his engineering degree at NIT Rourkela under Direct Admission of Students Abroad (DASA) scheme.