MUMBAI - AN INDIAN doctor has sworn a legal undertaking that she will improve her handwriting after judges complained that they could not read her spidery scrawl, media here said on Saturday.

The radiologist from Thane, in the greater Mumbai area, had been asked to file a report in the case of a man who claimed that his underage daughter had been forced into marriage by a neighbour.

The medic conducted an age test on the girl, found her to be over 18 and that she wanted to stay in the marriage, leading to the dismissal of her father's case.

But the doctor's conclusions had to be relayed by telephone to the Bombay High Court Friday, as she was not present at the hearing and the two judges could not decipher her handwriting.

The judges rejected her excuse that her writing was poor because she wrote hundreds of reports every day.

'You may be dealing with hundreds of reports but you must write in legible hand,' they added.

The doctor has signed a court affidavit pledging to improve her script, lawyers said. -- AFP