Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Oct 8: In a suit filed by the petitioner, who allegedly became blind due to the negligence of doctors, Principal District and Sessions Judge, Jammu, Jang Bahadur Singh Jamwal today directed Chief Secretary to pay damages to the petitioner to the tune of Rs 14,84,000 with the interest at the rate of 7.5 % Per Annum from the date of filling of the suit.
The petitioner namely Dawarka Nath Raina suffered an attack of cough and noticed a fine lining of blood in the sputum and he approach the Chest Diseases Hospital, Jammu on October 25, 1989, where he was examined in the OPD by the Doctor on duty and an Out Patient Ticket (OPT) No. 075581 was issued in his favour.
Later, the petitioner along with X-ray and sputum test reports approached Dr Veena Gupta in the OPD on October 26, 1989, who after due examination of the same, prescribed, anti tuberculosis treatment for the petitioner and he was referred to the District Tuberculosis Centre, Jammu for free disbursal of the medicines.
The petitioner was given medicines out of which some tablets were in loose form and after collecting the medicines, he started taking the same as prescribed. To the utter discomfort of the petitioner, he experienced extreme pain in chest and head with corresponding dizziness, nausea and vomiting as and when he took the prescribed drugs. He again approached CD Hospital with the same complaint on October 27, 1989 and the doctor concerned took back the loose tablets and then replaced the same with tablets in strips.
Suddenly on January 2, 1990 blurring of the vision became very prominent and assertive and continued to increase repeatedly. Then Head of Department of CD Hospital referred the petitioner to Dr Subash Gupta, the then HoD Ophthalmology who after examining the petitioner referred him to AIIMS where doctors noticed that the petitioner’s blindness was due to toxic effect of the drug prescribed by doctors in CB Hospital as a part of anti tuberculosis treatment.
Upon this, the petitioner filed suit for recovery of Rs 16,08,000 as damages on account of the negligent act of doctors.
After hearing Advocate Virender Bhat for the petitioner whereas Advocate Navneet Dubey for the respondents, Principal Sessions Judge observed, “the doctors are the part of hospital directly under the control of Chief Secretary and doctors are employees of Chief Secretary and hence the Chief Secretary is liable for all wrongs done by employees”.
With these observations, the Court directed Chief Secretary to pay damages to the petitioner to the tune of Rs 14,84,000 with the interest at the rate of 7.5 % Per Annum from the date of filling of the suit.
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