Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Nov 21: High Court while quashing FIR filed against a doctor for death of a patient in alleged medical negligence today said it can’t become bases for attempt to murder case and patient care will suffer.
Justice M K Hanjura in a land mark judgment held: “Negligence, which can neither be rated as gross nor of a higher degree, may give a person the teeth to seek the settlement of his claim in civil law, but it cannot form the baseline for the prosecution of an accused under Section 304-A RPC”.
Court was hearing a petition filed by a doctor for seeking quashing of an FIR filed against him for having negligence in treatment of a patient who died after being operated in SMHS hospital.
Justice Hanjura differentiating between civil and criminal liability of a doctor causing death of his patient, said, the court has a difficult task of weighing the degree of carelessness and negligence alleged on the part of the doctor.
“To bring an act within the definition of criminal negligence, the degree of negligence has to be of a higher order. The law is that the concept of negligence differs in civil and criminal law. What may be negligence in civil law may not necessarily be negligence in the criminal law”, Justice Hanjura elaborated.
“The petition, under Section 561-A Cr.P.C. filed by the petitioner, Dr. Mufti Mehmood Ahmad Farooqi, is allowed on the analogy of the law as cited and as a sequel to which, the FIR bearing FIR No. 42 of the year 2014 registered against the petitioner at Police Station Karan Nagar and the proceedings emanating there from are ordered to be quashed”, court directed.
Court further added that in a case of prosecution of a medical professional for negligence under criminal law, it has to be shown authoritatively that the acts of omission and commission attributed to a person were such that no medical professional in his ordinary senses and prudence would have done or failed to do.
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