Case Study Of Criminal Liability And Negligence

Criminal Liability and Negligence
The Supreme Court in Jacob Mathew v State of Punjab has provided some grounds relating the degree of negligence and safe guards for doctors. The Supreme Court held that the criminal prosecution is filed by the private parties and by police when ant FIR is lodged. The investigating officer always cannot have the perfect knowledge as to whether the act of the medical practitioner amounts to negligence or not and if they come within the ambit of section 304-A of the Indian Penal Code. Once the criminal prosecution is initiated it will amount to serious embarrassment to the medical practitioner. He has to seek for bail and if he’s not granted the bail it will affect his reputation and he’ll be the talk of the

The liability of a doctor arises not when the patient suffers injury but when the injury results due to the conduct of the doctor, which was below reasonable care. Hence once there exist a duty which has to be established by the patient, then the next step is to prove breach of such duty and the causation.
Normally the liability arises only when the plaintiff is able to discharge the burden on him of proving negligence. However, in some cases the principle of “res ipsa loquitor” which means the thing speaks for it might come into action. Mostly the doctor is liable only for his own acts. However in some cases a doctor can also be made vicariously liable for the acts of another. The example of such a situation is when a junior doctor assisting the senior doctor commits a mistake it becomes the duty of the senior to have supervised him hence vicariously