1. Present petition has been filed by the petitioner for quashing of order dated 19th December, 2007, passed by learned Metropolitan Magistrate in a complaint case under section 336/337/471 read with section 34 IPC qua the petitioner. It is submitted that petitioner Indraprastha Medical Corporation Limited was a company incorporated under Companies Act and the company being only a juristic person was incapable of committing a crime of medical negligence, because it involved personal negligent act.

2. A complaint was filed before the learned M.M. against the petitioner company and the Doctors involved in the treatment of deceased wherein it was alleged that deceased died due to gross medical negligence of the Doctors. It is also submitted that Doctors involved in treatment advised wrong/superfluous treatments in order to extract extra money.

3. The petitioner’s counsel stated that petitioner is not assailing the order as against Doctors but is assailing it so far as company was concerned on the ground that the company running the hospital, could not have acted in the manner in which it is assailed by the complainant.

4. In Standard Chartered Bank Vs. Directorate of Enforcement, 2005 SCC (Cri.) 961, SC made following observations regarding criminal liability of the Corporation:

"6. There is no dispute that a company is liable to be prosecuted and punished for criminal offences. Although there are earlier authorities to the effect that corporations cannot commit a crime, the generally accepted modern rule is that except for such crimes as a corporation is held incapable of committing by reason of the fact that they involve personal malicious intent, a corporation may be subject to indictment or other criminal process, although the criminal act is committed through its agents.

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8. Inasmuch as all criminal and quasi-criminal offences are creatures of statute, the amenability of the corporation to prosecution necessarily depends upon the terminology employed in the statute. In the case of strict liability, the terminology employed by the legislature is such as to reveal an intent that guilt shall not be predicated upon the automatic breach of the statute but on the establishment of the actus reus, subject to the defence of due diligence. The law is primarily based on the terms of the statutes. In the case of absolute liability where the legislature by the clearest intendment establishes an offence where liability arises instantly upon the breach of the statutory prohibition, no particular state of mind is a prerequisite to guilt. Corporations and individual persons stand on the same footing in the face of such a statutory offence. It is a case of automatic primary responsibility. It is only in a case requiring mens rea, a question arises whether a corporation could be attributed with requisite mens rea to prove the guilt. But as we are not concerned with this question in these proceedings, we do not express any opinion on that issue." In Kalpnath Rai Vs. State, 1998 AIR (SC) 201, SC made following observations:

"The company is not a natural person. We are aware that in many recent penal statutes, companies or corporations are deemed to be offenders on the strength of the acts committed by persons responsible for the management of affairs of such company or corporations e.g. Essential Commodities Act, Prevention of Food Adulteration Act etc. But there is no such provision in TADA which makes the company liable for the acts of its officers. Hence, there is no scope whatsoever to prosecute a company for the offence under Section 3(4) of TADA. The corollary is that the conviction passed against A-12 is liable to be set aside." In Standard Chartered Bank Vs. Vinay Kumar Sood & Ors, 2009 (1) JCC 756, this court had observed as under:

"Undisputedly, the petitioner is a bank incorporated in England with limited liability by Royal Charter, 1853 and, therefore, is a corporation/company. A company cannot be in any case held to h