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Chandigarh Nursing Home and Anr. vs Sukhdeep Kaur

Civil Appeal · 2022 INSC 943Decided 9 Sept 2022
Civil Appeal No. 5931 of 2022
M.R. Shah · Krishna Murari

Background

A minor patient, through her father, filed a consumer complaint alleging medical negligence against a nursing home, claiming she was wrongly treated by a BAMS (Ayurveda) doctor who was not competent to prescribe allopathic medicines, causing uncontrollable rashes. The District Forum awarded Rs. 1 lakh compensation, which the complainant did not challenge further. The nursing home, however, appealed to the State Commission (dismissed) and then filed a revision petition before the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, which, while dismissing the nursing home's own revision petition, enhanced the compensation to Rs. 10 lakhs.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court upheld the concurrent finding of negligence against the nursing home but held that the National Commission could not enhance compensation in a revision petition filed by the nursing home itself, when the complainant had never appealed or sought enhancement, unless it was exercising its specific "suo moto" revisional power under Section 21(b) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, which it had not done, nor given the nursing home any notice or opportunity on that point. The Court also found the National Commission's enhancement to Rs. 10 lakhs was not backed by adequate reasoning about the complainant's actual disability. Using its special power under Article 142 of the Constitution to do complete justice, the Court set aside the Rs. 10 lakh figure but independently raised the original Rs. 1 lakh award to Rs. 4 lakhs, considering the proven negligence and ongoing suffering.

Lesson Learnt

A consumer forum cannot use a party's own appeal or revision against an unfavourable order to make that party's position worse (enhance the amount against them) unless the other side also appealed or the forum is exercising a specifically invoked suo moto power with due notice: a party should not be "ambushed" by a worse outcome than it appealed against.

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

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