STATE OF HARYANA Vs. SANTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Leave granted.

(2.) Medical Negligence plays its game in strange ways. Sometimes it plays with life; sometimes it gifts an "Unwanted Child" as in the instant case where the respondent, a poor labourer woman, who already had many children and had opted for sterilisation, developed pregnancy and ultimately gave birth to a female child in spite of sterilisation operation which, obviously, had failed. Smt. Santra, the victim of the medical negligence, filed a suit for recovery of Rs. 2 lakhs as damages for medical negligence, which was decreed for a sum of Rupees 54,000/- with interest at the rate of 12 per cent per annum from the date of institution of the suit till the payment of the decretal amount. Two appeals were filed against this decree in the Court of District Judge, Gurgaon, which were disposed of by Addl. District Judge, Gurgaon, by a common judgment dated 10-5-1999. Both the appeals - one filed by the State of Haryana and the other by Smt. Santra were dismissed. The second appeal filed by the State of Haryana was summarily dismissed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court on 3-8-1999. It is in these circumstances that the present Special Leave Petition has been filed in this Court.

(3.) "Sterilisation Scheme" admittedly, was launched by the Haryana Govt. and taking advantage of that scheme, Smt. Santra approached the Chief Medical Officer, Gurgaon, for her sterilisation in 1988. The sterilisation operation was performed on her and a certificate to that effect was also issued to her on 4-2-1988 under the signatures of the Medical Officer, General Hospital, Gurgaon. Smt. Santra was assured that full, complete and successful sterilisation operation had been performed upon her and she would not conceive a child in future. But despite the operation, she conceived. When she contacted the Chief Medical Officer and other Doctors of the General Hospital, Gurgaon. She was informed that she was not pregnant. Two months later when the pregnancy became apparent, she again approached those Doctors who then told her that her sterilisation operation was not successful. Dr. Sushil Kumar Goyal, who was examined as DW-2, stated that the operation related only to the right Fallopian Tube and the left Fallopian Tube was not touched, which indicates that 'complete sterilisation' operation was not done. She requested for an abortion, but was advised not to go in for abortion as the same would be dangerous to her life. She ultimately gave birth to a female child. Smt. Santra already had seven children and the birth of a new child put her to unnecessary burden of rearing up the child as also all the expenses involved in the maintenance of that child, including the expenses towards her clothes and education.