The Tripura High Court has observed that medical negligence can be termed a criminal offence, a lawyer said here Friday.
"A doctor in Agartala after an operation of a woman's abdomen left behind an eight-inch corrugated drain tube inside her body. While hearing the case, High Court Chief Justice Deepak Gupta last week observed this was medical negligence and it can be termed criminal offence," lawyer Bhaskar Deb told reporters.
According to him, while performing laparoscopic surgery on Sarbani Deb's abdomen in January 2006, doctor Pratap Sanyal acted in a grossly negligent manner which amounts to criminal negligence or criminal offence.
Sarbani's husband Bapi Roy Choudhury, a senior journalist, filed a case in a lower court (first class judicial magistrate) against the doctor.
"With the court framing criminal charges against Sanyal, he filed a petition in the high court to quash the lower court's proceedings," the lawyer said.
Rejecting the doctor's petition, Justice Gupta observed that it was prima facie established that the doctor has committed a criminal offence and the trial can continue in the lower court.
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The lawyer said after the operation, the patient complained of severe pain in the abdomen and contacted the doctor on a number of occasions.
He said the doctor misbehaved with the Deb couple when they approached the surgeon repeatedly with the scan report.
The lawyer said: "Not satisfied with the treatment of Doctor Sanyal, Roy Choudhury took his wife to Kolkata (October 2007). Following another surgery (that month), doctors removed the corrugated drain tube from the body, relieving the patient from the severe pain of 21 months."