SC tells Kolkata hospital to pay nearly Rs 6 crore for medical negligence death

October 24, 2013
New Delhi, Oct 24: The Supreme Court on Thursday awarded a whopping Rs.5.96 crore as compensation to be paid by Kolkata- based AMRI Hospital and three doctors to a US-based Indian- origin doctor for medical negligence which led to the death of his wife in 1998. Kunal_saha

A bench of justices S J Mukhopadhaya and V Gopala Gowda asked the hospital and the three doctors to pay the amount within eight weeks to Kunal Saha, an Ohio-based AIDS researcher.

The National Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission (NCDRC) in 2011 had awarded Rs.1.73 crore to the doctor whose wife Anuradha Saha died in 1998 following faulty treatment administered at the hospital.

Raising the amount of compensation, the apex court also asked the hospital to pay an interest at the rate of six per cent to Saha.

The court said out of the total compensation amount, Dr Balram Prasad and Dr Sukumar Mukherjee will pay Rs.10 lakh each and Dr Baidyanath Halder will have to pay Rs.five lakh to Saha within eight weeks.

The rest of the amount, along with the interest, will be paid by the hospital, the apex court said, adding that a compliance report be filed before it after payment of the compensation amount.

NCDRC had fixed the compensation on a direction by the apex court, which had referred Saha's appeal to it while holding the three doctors and the hospital culpable to civil liability for medical negligence which had led to the death of Anuradha.

Anuradha, herself a child psychologist, had come to her home town Kolkata in March 1998 on a summer vacation. She complained of skin rashes on April 25 and consulted Dr Sukumar Mukherjee, who, without prescribing any medicine, simply asked her to take rest.

As rashes reappeared more aggressively on May 7, 1998, Dr Mukherjee prescribed Depomedrol injection 80 mg twice daily, a step which was later faulted by experts at the apex court.

After administration of the injection, Anuradha's condition deteriorated rapidly following which she had to be admitted at AMRI on May 11 under Dr Mukherjee's supervision.

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News Network
May 9,2020

Thrissur, May 9: Five people were arrested for allegedly conducting congregational prayers at a mosque here in violationofthe COVID-19 lockdown norms.

A case was registered against five people for conducting evening prayers on Friday, police said.

We received information that prayers were being conducted in the mosque, they said adding they were held at Eriyad Masjidul Bilal mosque here.

On Friday, four people, including the president of a local temple trust, were arrested for allegedly conducting a religious recitation in a temple here in violation of lockdown restrictions.

Though lockdown conditions have been eased in accordance with the Centre's guidelines, public gatherings, including functions, weddings, political events and religious gatherings were not allowed.

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News Network
January 28,2020

Panaji, Jan 28: Bureaucrat-turned-activist Kannan Gopinathan on Tuesday said even some "RSS people" are convinced the Citizenship Amendment Act is a bad law but are keeping quiet as the NDA government at the Centre is their own baby.

Speaking in Panaji, he further said the Narendra Modi government was behaving like a "drunken teenager" which needs to be questioned or else it will end up destroying homes.

"I was detained twice in UP, kept the whole day, because they (government) do not want the questioning (of CAA). I have met so many RSS people, they also understand this...if you have this conversation, they also understand the government has done something (wrong) and they have been asked to support it," he claimed.

He said the line of thought among these RSS people (he met) was "just support it (CAA)" as they don't want an altercation because the "government is their baby".

"He (government) is not a normal baby, he is a drunken teenager. He should be asked questions because when he starts destroying, he does not destroy somebody else's home but your own home," Gopinathan said.

He also hit out at those who have been claiming that the people protesting against the CAA are unaware about the law and have not even read it.

Gopinathan claimed if one had asked supportive MPs about the CAA on the day it was passed in Parliament, several of them would not have been able to speak on it as "they would not have known what was passed, because they were not given time (to go through the bill)".

He said, earlier, such legislation was passed after several rounds of consultation but "now, by night, it becomes an Act", adding (now) "everything is a surgical strike".

Gopinathan, in a possible reference to the National Register of Citizens exercise carried out in Assam, also claimed "thousands of people are in detention centres".

"It is your fundamental right to peacefully assemble without arms, Article 19 (1) (D) (of the Constitution)," he said at a function organised by a group opposed to CAA.

Gopinathan said people "always felt they were in a democracy" because they never tried to fly, when in reality "you are in a cage".

"The moment you want to fly you realise you are in a cage," he said, adding that "we have to question, we have to ask ourselves where are we going".

"When you don't allow a person to speak against an incorrect legislation, then what is democracy? What is freedom of expression?" Gopinathan questioned.

Gopinathan, a 2012 batch AGMUT cadre Indian Administrative Service officer, was the secretary, Power Department of the Union Territories of Daman and Diu, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli when he resigned on August 21 last year.

At the time, he had claimed the people of Jammu and Kashmir were being denied freedom of expression following abrogation of Article 370 by the Centre.

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News Network
July 1,2020

Sopore, Jul 1: Police rescued a three-year-old boy from getting hit by bullets during a terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Sopore on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) jawan and a civilian lost their lives after terrorists fired upon a CRPF patrolling party in Sopore.

Two of the injured CRPF jawans are known to be in critical condition. Three CRPF personnel were also injured in the attack, as per CRPF.

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