Disposal of bodies of persons dying while suffering from notified disease

(1) No person having the charge or control of the body of any person who has died while suffering from a notified disease shall permit or suffer persons to come unnecessarily into contact with, or proximity to, the body. (2) No person shall, without the sanction in writing of an officer of the Public Health Department of the Government or of the local authority concerned not below the rank of Health or Sanitary Inspector, retain in any premises (elsewhere than in a public mortuary) for more than twelve hours the body of any person who has died while suffering from any notified disease. (3) (a) If any such body (not being a body kept in a mortuary) remains undisposed of for more than twelve hours without the sanction referred to in sub-section (2), or if the dead body of any person is retained in any building so as to endanger the health of the immates of such building or of any adjoining or neighbouring building, any Magistrate may, on the application of any officer referred to in sub-section (2), order the body to be removed and disposed of within a specified time. (b) Any Magistrate may, in the case of the body of a person who has died while suffering from a notified disease, or in any other case in which he considers the immediate disposal of the body necessary, direct the body to be disposed of, unless the friends or the relatives of the deceased undertake the disposal of the body within a time specified in the order. (c) The expenses of the removal and disposal of any body under clause (a) or clause (b) shall be borne by the local authority; but such expenses may be recovered as if it were a tax due to the local authority from any person who would have been legally liable therefor but for such removal and disposal, unless, in the opinion of the local authority, he is too poor to do so. (4) (a) If any person dies in a hospital or a place of temporary accommodation for the sick, while suffering from a notified disease, and the Health Officer certifies that, in his opinion, it is desirable, in order to prevent the spread of infection, that the body should not be removed from such hospital or place except for the purpose of being taken direct to a burial or burning ground or a crematorium for being forthwith buried or cremated, no person shall remove the body from the hospital or place except for such a purpose. (b) When the body is removed for the purpose aforesaid, it shall forthwith be taken direct to a burial or burning ground or a crematorium and there buried or cremated with the least practicable delay. (5) Without the permission of the Health Officer or a Magistrate, no person shall cause or permit to be carried in a public or private conveyance the dead body of any person who has died while suffering from cholera, small-pox or plague.