India, Sept. 9 -- The Bombay High Court on Monday directed the Maharashtra government to draft and notify within three weeks guidelines for protecting the privacy of adolescents who approach registered medical practitioners to terminate their unwanted pregnancies.

A division bench of justices Revati Mohite-Dere and Sandesh Patil passed the order after hearing a petition filed by a few doctors, including city-based gynaecologist Dr Nikhil Datar. The doctors had approached the high court complaining that the police overstep their authority and demand the names of adolescent girls who approach them for the medical termination of pregnancy (MTP) following consensual relationships.

Datar argued that the current "straitjacket formula" under t...