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

The judge directed the High Court Registry to issue a certified copy of the DNA profiling report to the couple. | Photo Credit: FILE PHOTO

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.