A Supreme Court bench led by Justices Sanjay Kumar and Satish Chandra Sharma has held that a physician cannot be held negligent simply because a patient fails to respond favourably to treatment or because a surgery does not succeed. The bench quashed an order of the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission which had found medical negligence in a case involving death after childbirth, ruling that an adverse outcome alone is insufficient to invoke liability under the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur.
The NCDRC had held Dr Kanwarjit Kochhar and a nursing home responsible for what it found to be deficiency in care during antenatal management and delivery. The complaint alleged failures such as delay in blood transfusion, lack of adequate equipment to handle complications during delivery, and improperly recorded medical records. The NCDRC ordered compensation in 2012; however, the Supreme Court reviewed whether the evidence substantively demonstrated negligence.
The Court noted that multiple medical boards’ reports, set up at the complainant’s request, had found no gross medical negligence in the labour management, delivery or post-delivery care by Dr Kochhar. None of the boards affirmed a clear breach of accepted medical protocol, and no expert report conclusively established failure in standard of care.
The doctrine of res ipsa loquitur, meaning “the thing speaks for itself”, requires conditions to be met before presuming negligence. The Court emphasised that the doctrine cannot be applied merely because an outcome is unfavourable. It must be shown that there is strong evidence of negligence—such as demonstrable departure from protocols, lack of requisite qualifications, or failure to perform duties with reasonable skill—for liability to be fixed.
The judgement drew on legal precedents including Jacob Mathew vs State of Punjab and Martin F D’Souza vs Mohd Ishfaq, which held that medical professionals should only be held liable if there is proof of a failure to exercise reasonable competence or skill, not simply because the treatment did not bring about the desired result.
The Court also held that NCDRC had exceeded its jurisdiction by attributing fault in antenatal care and management of the patient, though such aspects had not been pleaded in the original complaint. The bench found that NCDRC built up new allegations beyond what was raised by the complainant, a practice that the Court found impermissible.
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