• By Detcare
• Posted On September 17, 2019

In an important decision Hon'ble Supreme Court of India said, that if the advise of a lawyer or a Doctor goes wrong in some way, even then no case under section 420 IPC or something like that can be registered against him/her. Though Supreme Court also said that Lawyers and Doctors should take care of the interests of his/her clients.(Justice P. Sthasivam and Justice Ranjan Gogoi bench)

The Court also said that in professions like lawyers and doctors, the professionals cannot guarantee for the success of the case. An advocate cannot provide guarantee to his/her client that he would definitely win the case, nor a doctor can guarantee the success of a treatment.

A lawyer does not tell his client that he shall win the case in all circumstances. Likewise a physician would not assure the patient of full recovery in every case. A surgeon cannot and does not guarantee that the result of surgery would invariably be beneficial, much less to the extent of 100% for the person operated on. The only assurance which such a professional can give or can be given by implication is that he is possessed of the requisite skill in that branch of profession which he is practising and while undertaking the performance of the task entrusted to him, he would be exercising his skill with reasonable competence. This is what the person approaching the professional can expect. Judged by this standard, a professional may be held liable for negligence on one of the two findings, viz., either he was not possessed of the requisite skill which he professed to have possessed, or, he did not exercise, with reasonable competence in the given case, the skill which he did possess.