Bombay High Court: a doctor isn't negligent merely for choosing one recognised procedure over another

A Division Bench of the Bombay High Court quashed a 2013 order of the Medical Council of India that had removed two doctors' names from the medical register, one for six months and the other for three years, on a patient's complaint of medical negligence in treating urinary stone and urethral stricture problems between 2005 and 2007. The Maharashtra Medical Council had earlier exonerated both, finding the patient's condition chronic, the treatment appropriate, and no promise of complete success. On the patient's appeal, the MCI reversed that finding. The High Court found that the MCI's order gave cryptic reasons, and that the only ground against one doctor was that he chose a scrotal skin flap rather than a mucosal graft as his first procedure.

Applying Jacob Mathew v. State of Punjab and later Supreme Court decisions, it held that a doctor cannot be held negligent merely for choosing one course of treatment over another, so long as he acts with reasonable skill and competence. The procedure was a recognised one, and the record showed the patient had consented to the operations. The Court said that while it cannot re-examine the merits of findings by specialist bodies such as the MCI's Ethics Committee, it can intervene where clear procedural irregularity and reasoning contrary to settled law are shown.