The Supreme Court has passed a landmark award in Indian medical negligence today, increasing to Rs 5.96 crore ($970,000) the compensation to be paid by Kolkata’s AMRI Hospital and doctors for the negligent death of Anuradha Saha in 1998, according to a PTI and other media reports.

Apex court judges Chandramauli KR Prasad and V Gopala Gowda upped the Rs 1.73 crore compensation awarded in 2011 by the National Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission (NCDRC) to Saha’s widower, who had originally asked for Rs 77 crore. [Correction: One of the bench members was incorrect in an earlier version of the story]

Three doctors will each have to pay between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 10 lakh out of the total, having also been to blame in the death of Saha, an Indian-born US-resident whose deadly skin disease was misdiagnosed and not treated properly on a visit to Kolkata.

However, the Supreme Court decreased the total award by 10 per cent due to the husband’s contributory negligence. The court had cleared the respondents of criminal liability in 2009 but upheld the civil case, requesting the NCDRC to fix the quantum of damages.

In the US, where multi-million dollar medical negligence claims are de rigeur, medical practitioners and hospitals require costly insurance to protect themselves from liability from lawsuits, while lawyers and law firms have specialised in the lucrative practice of suing hospitals for malpractice.

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CHANDRAMAULI KR. PRASAD