New Delhi, Jan. 4: The Supreme Court today rejected an NRI couple’s plea for a post-mortem on the frozen body of their baby who died in a British hospital seven years ago, aged five months.

Rajesh Kumar and Sadhana Chaudhuri, who allege medical negligence and intentional poisoning of their daughter, lost a string of cases against the British health services since Sunaina’s death in early 2001.

The body, which arrived in India on March 19 this year, has been lying in a zinc-lined, sealed coffin at the Penzy Morgans mortuary in Delhi’s Paharganj.

British doctors, who conducted two autopsies, said the baby was born with a stomach growing inside its heart and died of natural causes arising out of multiple birth defects.

The parents allege the baby’s eyes and other organs were missing when they were handed the body. They ran a signature campaign in the UK for a probe. When the British authorities threatened to destroy the body, the couple brought it to India to seek a fresh post-mortem to establish possible foul play.

“We can’t take over investigation of something that has happened in another country,” a two-judge bench headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan ruled today.

The parents allege the baby was poisoned with an overdose of the drug ranitidine after the doctors bungled her treatment.

“All the baby’s internal organs (including the eyes and brain) were removed four days before the first post-mortem, but this was not investigated,” the parents’ petition alleges. It says the UK post-mortems were done on frozen samples and tissues.

With an organ autopsy ruled out, the parents have been asking for a chemical forensic test. But they lost their appeals in a lower Delhi court and then in Delhi High Court, both of which cited the same reason as the apex court.

Experts from Delhi’s Maulana Azad Medical College and Hospital told the high court that with seven years gone, it was impossible to establish poisoning anyway.

The couple’s counsel, Meenakshi Arora, made an emotional plea before the apex court seeking at least a cytogenetic (chromosome) test. She said the parents were willing to pay the costs of the test, whether carried out by a government hospital or a private clinic.

“It may or may not lead to an investigation… but it should be conducted by an independent agency, if only for the satisfaction of the parents.”

Ashok Agarwal, counsel for the NGO Social Jurist that had filed the couple’s plea in the high court, said Sadhana had been medically advised against having the baby because the foetus showed abnormalities. But she went ahead and delivered her, on October 12, 2000, in Essex.

For the first five months, the baby did fine, the parents said.