Doctors To Be Exempted From Prosecution In Cases Of Death Due To Medical Negligence: Home Minister
The Lok Sabha passed three revised criminal bills on Wednesday, and one of the amendments gives exemptions to doctors from criminal prosecution in cases of death due to medical negligence.
It was on last week, Union Home Minister Amit Shah introduced three new bills replacing existing criminal bills in practice. By substituting Indian Penal Code, Code of Criminal Procedure and Indian Evidence Act, Centre has introduced three new bills – the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Bill, 2023; Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) Bill, 2023; and Bharatiya Sakshya (BS) Bill, 2023 respectively.
On the thirteenth day of the winter session, the new bills were passed in the lower house of the parliament. Among the certain amendments put forward in the revised bills by Union Home Minister Amit Shah one such move is exclusion of doctors from criminal prosecution for death due to medical negligence. Earlier, medical negligence was part of the IPC. IPC Section 304 A , “Causing death by negligence,” read: “Whoever causes the death of any person by doing any rash or negligent act not amounting to culpable homicide shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both.” While discussing the bill, Home Minister claimed that the government plan on introducing an amendment on IPC Section detailing medical negligence was in line with a request made by the Indian Medical Association (IMA), Live law reports.
These bills were passed in Lok Sabha in the absence of 97 opposition MPs. Forty-nine Lok Sabha MPs including Congress leaders Shashi Tharoor, NC leader Farooq Abdullah, and NCP Supriya Sule were suspended from the lower house for disrupting the proceedings. Today witnessed the suspension of two more Opposition MPs from Lok Sabha – Kerala Congress (Mani) leader Thomas Chazhikadan and Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader AM Ariff. A total of 143 MPs from both houses of the parliament were suspended as of Wednesday. The Winter session of the Parliament will conclude on December 22.
