Jacob Mathew v.

State of Punjab (2005) 6 SCC 1

Submitted by

SHIVANSHU KHARE

Division- A. Roll No- 48 Class- 2nd semester. Batch of 2016-2021

Lloyd Law College

In

Month 04, year 2017

 CONTENTS

(i) FACTS
(ii) JUDGEMENT
(iii) ISSUE
(iv) MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE
(v) BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bench: Cji R.C. Lahoti, G.P. Mathur, P.K.Balasubramanyan

FACTS:
Jiwan Lal Sharma was admitted as a patient in a private ward of CMC Hospital,
Ludhiana. On 22.2.1995 at about 11 p.m., Jiwan Lal felt difficulty in breathing. The
complainant's elder brother, Vijay Sharma who was present in the room contacted the
duty nurse, who in her turn called some doctor to attend to the patient. No doctor turned
up for about 20 to 25 minutes. Then, Dr. Jacob Mathew, the appellant before us and Dr.
Allen Joseph came to the room of the patient. An oxygen cylinder was brought and
connected to the mouth of the patient but the breathing problem increased further. The
patient tried to get up but the medical staff asked him to remain in the bed. The oxygen
cylinder was found to be empty. There was no other gas cylinder available in the room.
Vijay Sharma went to the adjoining room and brought a gas cylinder therefrom.
However, there was no arrangement to make the gas cylinder functional and in-between,
5 to 7 minutes were wasted. By this time, another doctor came who declared that the
patient was dead.

JUDGEMENT:
The Judicial Magistrate First Class, Ludhiana framed charges under Section
304A, IPC against the two accused persons, both doctors. Both of them filed a revision in the
Court of Sessions Judge submitting that there was no ground for framing charges against
them. The revision was dismissed. The appellant filed a petition in the High Court
under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure praying for quashing of the FIR and all
the subsequent proceedings.

It was submitted before the High Court that there was no specific allegation of any act of
omission or commission against the accused persons in the entire plethora of documents
comprising the challan papers filed by the police against them. The learned single Judge who
heard the petition formed an opinion that the plea raised by the appellant was available to be
urged in defence at the trial and, therefore, a case for quashing the charge was not made out.
Vide order dated 18.12.2002, the High Court dismissed the petition. An application for
recalling the above said order was moved which too was dismissed on 24.1.2003. Feeling
aggrieved by these two orders, the appellant has filed these appeals by special leave.
 The matter came up for hearing before a Bench of two learned judges of this Court. Reliance
was placed by the appellant on a recent two-judge Bench decision of this Court in Dr. Suresh
Gupta v. Govt. of NCT of Delhi and Anr.1 (2004) 6 SCC 422. The Bench hearing this appeal
doubted the correctness of the view taken in Dr. Suresh Gupta's case and vide order dated
9.9.2004 expressed the opinion that the matter called for consideration by a Bench of three
Judges. This is how the case has come up for hearing before this Bench

With the awareness in the society and the people in general gathering consciousness about
their rights, actions for damages in tort are on the increase. Not only civil suits are filed, the
availability of a forum for grievance redressal under the Consumer Protection Act, 19862
having jurisdiction to hear complaints against professionals for 'deficiency in service', which
expression is very widely defined in the Act, has given rise to a large number of complaints
against professionals, in particular against doctors, being filed by the persons feeling
aggrieved. Criminal complaints are being filed against doctors alleging commission of
offences punishable under Section 304A or Sections 336/337/338 of the IPC3 alleging
rashness or negligence on the part of the doctors resulting in loss of life or injury (of varying
degree) to the patient. The present one is such a case. The order of reference has enabled us
to examine the concept of 'negligence', in particular 'professional negligence', and as to when
and how it does give rise to an action under the criminal law. We propose to deal with the
issues in the interests of settling the law.

ISSUE
(i) Is there a difference in civil and criminal law on the concept of negligence?
(ii) whether a different standard is applicable for recording a finding of negligence when
a professional, in particular, a doctor is to be held guilty of negligence?

MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE:

1
Dr. Suresh Gupta v. Govt. of NCT of Delhi and Anr. (2004) 6 SCC 422.
2
Consumer Protection Act, 19862
3
Section 304A orSections 336/337/338 of the IPC3
The term "medical negligence" is often used synonymously with "medical malpractice," and for
most purposes that's adequate. Strictly speaking though, medical negligence is only one required
legal element of a meritorious (legally valid) medical malpractice claim.

Here is one definition of medical negligence:

An act or omission (failure to act) by a medical professional that deviates from the accepted
medical standard of care.
When it comes to medical malpractice law, medical negligence is usually the legal concept upon
which the case hinges, from a "legal fault" perspective. Negligence on its own does not merit a
medical malpractice claim, but when the negligence is the cause of injury to a patient, there may
be a good case for medical malpractice.

Negligence in General

Negligence is a common legal theory that comes into play when assessing who is at fault in a tort
case. It's best to think of a tort case as civil injury case. A common example of a tort case, and a
good way to explain how negligence works, is to think of a driver getting into an accident on the
road. In a car accident, it is usually established that one person caused the accident -- by
breaching their legal duty to obey traffic laws and drive responsibly under the circumstances --
and that person is responsible for all damages suffered by other parties involved in the crash.

For example, if a driver fails to stop at a red light, then that driver is said to be negligent in the
eyes of the law (theyve also violated a traffic law). If the failure to stop at the red light causes an
accident, then the negligent driver is responsible (usually through an insurer) to pay for any
damage caused to other drivers, passengers, or pedestrians, as a result of running the red light.

Medical Negligence Explained

In the last section, we looked at negligence in terms of a drivers legal duty (owed to other
drivers, passengers, and pedestrians) to operate a vehicle with reasonable care under the
circumstances. Now we'll look at negligence in the context of medical care.

Similar to drivers, doctors and other medical professionals also have a duty to their patients, to
provide treatment that is in line with the medical standard of care, which is usually defined as
the level and type of care that a reasonably competent and skilled health care professional, with a
similar background and in the same medical community, would have provided under the
circumstances that led to the alleged malpractice.

So, medical negligence occurs when a doctor, dentist, nurse, surgeon or any other medical
professional performs their job in a way that deviates from this accepted medical standard of
care. In keeping with our car accident analogy, if a doctor provides treatment that is sub-standard
in terms of accepted medical norms under the circumstances, then that doctor has failed to
perform his or her duty, and is said to be negligent.

Medical Negligence Does Not Equal Injury

Its important to reiterate that medical negligence does not always result in injury to the patient.
When a driver runs a red light and no accident occurs, the driver is still negligent, even though
no one got hurt. Similarly, a doctor or other health care professional might deviate from the
appropriate medical standard of care in treating a patient, but if the patient is not harmed and
their health is not impacted, that negligence wont lead to a medical malpractice case.

How Negligence Becomes Medical Malpractice

In short, medical negligence becomes medical malpractice when the doctors negligent treatment
causes undue injury to the patient -- makes the patients condition worse, causes unreasonable
and unexpected complications, or necessitates additional medical treatment, to name just a few
examples of whats considered injury in a malpractice case.

In other words, the addition of two additional elements -- legal causation and damages -- are
necessary before medical negligence will give rise to a viable medical malpractice lawsuit. If the
doctors medical negligence was not a foreseeable result of the patients harm (causation), or if
the doctors medical negligence actually had no detrimental effect on the patients condition
(damages), a medical malpractice claim will fall short.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

(i) http://www.scconline.com
(ii) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3579074/
(iii) http://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/medical-malpractice/negligence.html