Supreme Court seeks US experts’ views in NRI case

The Supreme Court on Monday allowed US-based HIV/AIDS consultant Dr Kunal Saha to advance the opinions of four American medical experts before the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) in a case of compensation due to gross negligence.

Dr Saha has been litigating vigorously to ensure that the “negligent” doctors at Kolkata’s prestigious Advanced Medicare Research Institute (AMRI) are made to face criminal trial. He accuses them of being responsible for the death of his child specialist wife, Dr Anuradha, in 1998.

NCDRC had absolved the hospital and the doctors. However, a bench of justices GS Singhvi and CK Prasad directed the forum to accept the opinion of the four experts for determination of the compensation amount.

These experts could be examined and cross-examined through “video-conferencing”, the bench added.

Dr Saha was aggrieved at the commission’s clean chit to the doctors. He brought in the foreign experts because as he felt that the Kolkata doctors’ opinions were biased.

On Monday, Dr Saha’s lawyer MN Krishnamani said NCDRC rejected the plea for making available the opinion of four foreign doctors as to whether Dr Saha’s wife had fatally suffered due to medical negligence.

Four US experts — Professor John Burke, a renowned economic expert from Cleveland; Dr John Broughton, a professor in psychology at Columbia University, New York; Joe Griffith, a legal expert on damages allowed in medical negligence cases and Angela Hill, an economic expert from Ohio — had supported Dr Saha’s lawsuit.