MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court called for those managing hospitals to be conscious of basic human rights after a ‘hale and hearty’ child lost a limb 15 years ago at one run by the Thane Municipal Corporation. The court stated, “Unless there is appropriate accountability fixed, things can never change.”
The High Court upheld a Rs 15 lakh payout recommended in December 2016 by the State Human Rights Commission to a man whose two-and-a-half-year-old son lost a leg in 2010 due to the “clear medical negligence” of doctors at a Thane Municipal Corporation hospital who failed to attend to him in time.
“It cannot be countenanced that human life is so worthless that such meagre compensation ought not to be entitled to the petitioner and for the benefit of his son,” said a division bench of Justices Girish Kulkarni and Advait Sethna in a January 14 order. Mohammed Shaikh, the father of the minor child, petitioned the High Court after TMC failed to pay, saying it had in 2014 paid the father Rs 10 lakh as ex-gratia payment and hence its duty was to only pay Rs 5 lakh.
The High Court said the child was at the mercy of TMC and its doctors.
The High Court observed it was an “unfortunate case” of the child being a victim of negligence at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Hospital at Kalwa, District Thane, being run by the TMC. The High Court order authored by Justice Kulkarni said, “The petitioner’s son, in the absence of such an unfortunate incident, would have led a normal life and, God knows, been successful in life by enjoying normal faculties.”
It directed the TMC to pay him the remaining Rs 10 lakh, with interest, since December 2016 when the MHRC passed its order.
The father, his lawyer Seema Chopda said, was a plumber and first approached the TMC for compensation and also the MSHRC, alleging violation of human rights and medical negligence. The TMC on June 2, 2014, paid him the ex-gratia of Rs 10 lakh. The High Court said the amount was “certainly inadequate.” Chopda argued that the TMC should pay the entire Rs 15 lakh with interest. TMC lawyer Ajit Pitale refuted, arguing that Rs 10 lakh was already paid. The MHRC, noting the human rights violation and medical negligence, which the TMC too accepted, directed TMC and Dean, Rajiv Gandhi Medical College Kelwa, to pay the father Rs 15 lakh with 12 percent interest. The MHRC noted that the “Municipal Commissioner, despite the strong recommendations of imposing a major penalty on both the doctors, decided to go soft by imposing a minor penalty” only.
The High Court found “serious fault” with a 2021 letter of the Dean to TMC to include Rs 10 lakh in the payout. The High Court said the stand was “totally inappropriate.” The High Court directed the amount be paid at an additional 6.5 percent to the father.
The High Court said, “The court is required to be more circumspect and conscious not only to the plight of the person who alleged violation of human rights, but who has actually suffered such violation.”
