The department of forensic medicine is located on the second floor of the ASHA Building in the Vellore town campus of CMC. Its primary responsibility is to teach this subject to MBBS students. It achieves this in systematic fashion through lectures, practical classes and tests. In addition, the department currently takes classes for students of three other courses run by CMC, namely Bachelor of Medical Record Science, Post Graduate Diploma in Family Medicine and BSc in Medical Sociology.

The department also provides the following forensic services: medico-legal autopsies on cadaver organ donors, forensic consultation for the clinical examination of victims of sexual assault, and storage/dispatch of biological evidentiary material taken from patients, who are also subjects of medico-legal investigation.

Staff of the department can attend or participate in institutional and extra-institutional academic activities to the extent permitted by the rules of the college. There also are opportunities for them to collaborate with other departments of CMC on various research projects.