The Supreme Court is examining whether compensation for medical negligence can be recovered from a doctor’s estate through legal heirs after the doctor’s death, even when the complainant has also died. The case raises crucial questions about survivability of civil liability under consumer law and could reshape medical negligence jurisprudence in India.
Medical negligence cases in India are rising, but there is no national database to measure their true burden. This article explains how the absence of reliable data, rising litigation, defensive medicine, and lack of tort reforms are harming doctors, patients, and the healthcare system, and why India urgently needs systemic legal and policy reforms.
A landmark NCDRC judgment has awarded ₹75 lakhs compensation in a medical negligence surgery case where a young patient lost her leg after a vascular procedure. This article explains the legal reasoning, failure of informed consent, surgical duty of care, and why the Commission held the doctors and hospital liable.
