Balram Prasad V. Kunal Saha And Advanced Medicare & Research Institute Ltd. V. Kunal Saha

Supreme Court awards Rs 11 crore as compensation the highest compensation awarded in India till date.

- Lawz Bureau

A landmark judgment in the history of medical negligence in India, where the Apex Court awarded an unprecedented compensation of Rs. 5.06 crores to the aggrieved widower, Kunal Saha, with interest from the date of filing of complaint in 1999 to the date of payment.

A hefty amount of Rs 5.96 crore is to be paid by Kolkata- based AMRI Hospital and three doctors to a US-based Indian-origin doctor as compensation for medical negligence which led to the death of his wife in 1998. The Supreme Court bench of Justices SJ Mukhopadhaya and V Gopala Gowda has asked the hospital and the three doctors to pay the amount to Kunal Saha, an Ohio-based AIDS researcher within eight weeks.

As her condition did not improve, she was admitted to AMRI and subsequently she was shifted to Mumbai’s Breach Candy Hospital where she was diagnosed to be suffering from life threatening disease called toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN). At AMRI, Anuradha was treated by Dr Mukherjee. TEN, also known as Lyell’s syndrome, is generally caused by a reaction to drugs and leads to the top layer of skin detaching from the lower layer all over the body. It is a more severe form of Stevens-Johnson syndrome.

Anuradha succumbed to her ailment on May 28, 1998.

In 2011, a compensation of Rs 1.73 crore was awarded by the National Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission (NCDRC) to the doctor whose wife Anuradha Saha had died in 1998 following faulty treatment administered at the hospital. The apex court, however, has raised the amount of compensation and asked the hospital to pay an interest at the rate of six per cent to Saha.