HARI MOHAN And COMPANY vs KAILASHPATI PANDEY

THIS appeal is directed against order dated 9.4.92 passed by the District Forum, Saran at Chapra in Complaint Case No. 16 of 91 in which the appellant before the State Commission was the opposite party and the respondent was the complainant before the District Forum.

THE complainant filed the case before the District Forum alleging as follows. His wife was suffering from gastritis and she was under the treatment of a Doctor at Varanasi who prescribed an injection of Trienergic for his wife and he personally went to the shop of the opposite party who happens to be medicine shop keeper for purchasing that injection. But the salesman of that shop gave him a phial of another injection namely Tidigesic which is given in diseases connected with heart instead of Trienergic injection. THE complainant came back to his house with that injection and that was injected to his wife by a compounder. Immediately thereafter his wife began to vomit and she fainted and thereafter a local doctor was called for and he examined his wife and told him that due to wrong injection the reaction has taken place and he prescribed another injection to counter act that reaction. With great difficulty the life of his wife could be saved. THE complainant filed the case before the District Forum claiming Rs. 20,000/- atleast for the suffering undergone by his wife and mental agony, harassment and financial loss sustained due to negligence on the part of the opposite party in the sale of the injection. On being noticed the opposite party appeared and he in his counter version inter-alia denied that the complainant had purchased that phial of injection from his shop on 13.2.92 or any other day. He has stated in his counter version that the complainant has filed at the instigation of his competitors false case in order to bring down his goodwill and that complaint was fit to be dismissed.

The complainant examined five witnesses on his behalf and one witness was examined on behalf of the O.P. in support of his case. The complainant also submitted prescriptions of the doctor.

THE District Forum has awarded Rs. 10,000/- as compensation to the complainant and also ordered for payment of Rs. 200 /-as cost of the case. Of course the witnesses examined on behalf of the complainant including the complainant have stated on oath that the medicine was purchased from the shop of O.P. But the witness examined on behalf of the opposite party has stated on oath that the complainant never purchased any injection phial from the shop of the O.P. But neither cash memo nor any paper has been produced by the complainant to indicate that the injection was purchased from the shop of the opposite party nor the compounder who is said to have injected the medicine was examined to support the case of the complainant. Moreover, the complainant happens to be an advocate and therefore it is expected that he at the time of purchasing the injection ought to have ascertained if the injection phial supplied was the same as prescribed by the doctor or different one. Moreover, a compounder also at the time of giving an injection always looks into the prescription of the doctor to ascertain the dose of the medicine to be injected. Therefore, we fail to understand as to how even the compounder could not detect that quite different injection had been supplied by the shopkeeper and that the phial given to him for injecting was not the injection prescribed by the doctor.

UNDER the circumstances on the basis of the oral evidence alone we do not find it safe to accept the case of the complainant against the opposite party. Hence we find that the impugned order passed by the District Forum can not be sustained. In the result the appeal is allowed and the impugned order passed by the District Forum is hereby set aside. There is no order as to costs. Appeal allowed.