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Asoke Kumar Chaudhuri & Others v. Kunal Saha & Another

Criminal Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Criminal Appeal No. 1163 of 2016)Decided 29 Nov 2016
Criminal Appeal No. 1163 of 2016
Justice A.K. Sikri · Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre

Background

After Dr. Kunal Saha's wife died allegedly due to medical negligence, he complained to the West Bengal Medical Council against the treating doctors. An Inquiry Committee of the Council (whose members are the appellants here) examined expert opinions favouring the complainant but still exonerated the doctors; separately, the Supreme Court later held those doctors civilly liable for negligence in the well-known Malay Kumar Ganguly case. Dr. Saha then filed a fresh criminal complaint against the Inquiry Committee members themselves, alleging they had criminally conspired (Sections 201/120B IPC) to shield the doctors by ignoring the expert reports; the Calcutta High Court declined to quash that complaint, and the Committee members appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Court held that even taking the complaint's allegations at face value, no criminal offence was made out against the Inquiry Committee members. It found Section 201 IPC (causing disappearance of evidence) inapplicable since no evidence had actually been destroyed or concealed in a legal sense, Section 120B (conspiracy) inapplicable because the alleged object was only to help the doctors in disciplinary proceedings rather than to commit a serious IPC offence, and Section 219 IPC (corrupt judicial decision by a public servant) inapplicable because departmental/disciplinary proceedings of a Medical Council committee are not "judicial proceedings" where evidence is taken on oath. Concluding that, even if the Committee had deliberately side-tracked the adverse expert opinions, this was at most a professional/departmental lapse and not a criminal offence under the IPC, the Court allowed the appeal and quashed the criminal complaint.

Lesson Learnt

A professional disciplinary body's failure to properly weigh expert evidence, even if deliberate, is not automatically a criminal offence; criminal liability requires that the specific ingredients of the IPC provision invoked (such as conspiracy to commit a serious offence, or corrupt conduct in an actual judicial proceeding) are genuinely satisfied, not just that the outcome seems unfair.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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