SC quashes culpable homicide charges slapped on doctor over phone prescription

The Supreme Court has quashed culpable homicide charges against a doctor whose telephonic instruction to a nurse for administering an injection allegedly led to the death of a patient. A bench of justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta said that while the doctor may be held accountable for negligence, the charge should be under Section 304A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) (causing death by negligence) rather than the graver Section 304 Part I of IPC (culpable homicide not amounting to murder).

Section 304 Part I carries a maximum sentence of 10 years. Section 304A is punishable by up to two years in prison. The case originated from an incident on February 21, 2013, when a woman visited a private nursing home at Thiruvallur in Tamil Nadu with complaints of headache, vomiting, giddiness, and fever. She was reportedly attended to by a nurse, who administered injections following a telephonic conversation with the doctor in question. Shortly thereafter, the patient became semi-conscious and was referred to a government hospital, where she was declared dead, according to the prosecution. The post-mortem examination report attributed her death to an acute hypersensitive drug reaction.