New Delhi, Nov 30 – A public interest litigation has been filed in the Supreme Court, asking the Centre and all state governments to put in place statutory norms for prosecuting doctors accused of criminal negligence, a requirement that was first set out almost twenty years ago in the Jacob Mathew judgment.
The petition highlights a “20-year-long inaction” by authorities even after the Supreme Court’s August 5 2005 directive, which ordered both Union and state governments to draft the necessary rules and executive instructions for such cases. The applicants call the delay “disheartening and disappointing,” noting that the country has been waiting for more than two decades for these mandatory rules, which remain unannounced.
The appeal also raises concerns about the current inquiry system. “In the absence of Statutory Rules or Executive Instructions as required to be framed in compliance of Jacob Mathew judgement and under the prevailing system of the Inquiry Committees comprising of mostly the doctors only, the medical inquiry reports, in many cases, do not happen to be unbiased,” the PIL states. It adds that “several innocent human beings become victim of torturous, agonising, miserable, ignoble and often butchering deaths in hospitals each year in our country, caused due to gross medical negligence.”
Families of patients are described as “absolutely helpless,” with “hardly any hope of justice for the victims of gross medical negligence in the situation of ‘doctors judging doctors’ obviously favouring their fraternity.” An RTI reply from the National Medical Commission confirmed that “no such guidelines have been framed” and that the process is “under process.”
The petition cites the 73rd Parliamentary Standing Committee Report (2013), which found that medical professionals investigating negligence cases are “very lenient towards their colleagues,” and that “none of them is willing to testify another doctor as negligent,” leading to “almost negligible” prosecution rates. NCRB data are cited, showing only 1,019 deaths attributed to medical negligence over six years in a country of more than 1.4 billion people – “astonishing and unbelievable,” the petition says.
Advocate Devansh Srivastava, who filed the PIL, reminds the Court that “every human life is precious” and that preventable deaths in hospitals “cannot be brushed aside merely as disciplinary issues.” The petition requests the Supreme Court give urgent, time-bound directions to:
* draft and publish the statutory rules as per Jacob Mathew,
* create inquiry panels that include retired judges, civil society members, patient representatives, NHRC nominees and independent experts, rather than relying solely on doctor‑dominated committees,
* establish accountability mechanisms to ensure that cases of gross medical negligence resulting in death are investigated impartially and prosecuted effectively.
The PIL argues that these steps are essential to protect Article 21 of the Constitution, as the right to life should encompass a fair and unbiased investigation into deaths caused by criminal medical negligence. According to the Court’s causelist, a bench with Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta will hear the matter on Monday, December 1.
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