New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday sought the response of the Maharashtra government on a petition from a Mumbai-based woman seeking compensation of about Rs 20 lakh, alleging that she was infected with HIV during blood transfusion.
A bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and Prafulla C. Pant also issued notice to Dr Gerra, the owner of the blood bank concerned, and Dr Vikas Mahaskar, who performed a caesarean surgery on the woman in January 1997, which is when the HIV-infected blood was transfused.
The bench entertained her appeal, against an order of the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC), for compensation of Rs 19,78,946. The commission had awarded Rs 5 lakh in compensation to her and, not satisfied with this, the woman moved the apex court.
The court, while issuing notices, tagged the matter with another appeal filed by the blood bank owner and Dr Mahaskar in September last year challenging an order passed by the commission on March 29, 2016, awarding Rs 5 lakh as compensation to the woman for not her consent not being taken while transfusing the blood.
In her appeal, the woman submitted that the NCDRC had erroneously failed to hold the blood bank and doctor liable for negligently transfusing HIV-contaminated blood to her post child birth, as a result of which she contracted HIV and also lost her baby boy to HIV within one and a half years.
According to her, the commission, while rightly holding the blood bank and the doctor “negligent in failing to take valid informed consent” of the victim before transfusing blood to her, wrongly concluded that there was no deficiency on their part by holding that they “did not act negligently in transfusing blood to her”.
She said the factum of HIV in her and the child was established within four months of the delivery, despite the fact that she was also diagnosed as HIV-free when she was admitted to the hospital at the time of delivery. She prayed for quashing of the commission’s order and compensation of about Rs 20 lakh.
