Medico-legal autopsies after sunset: Ethical issues

From the British era, regular medico-legal autopsies have never been done in India after sunset, except for those specially permitted by the law enforcement agencies. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, issued a notification on November 15, 2021, regarding the “Conduct of post-mortem in hospitals after sunset”. This has given rise to much debate on whether post-mortems can be conducted after sunset in an ethical manner. Here, we briefly discuss the various issues related to the carrying out of post-mortems after sunset in India.