The main legal point established in the judgment is that the doctor's negligence in performing the unsuccessful sterilisation operation binds the State, and the State is liable for damages. The Court also recognized the entitlement of the respondent to claim full damages from the State to bring up the child at least till she attains puberty.

S. Saghir Ahmad, J.—Leave granted.

Medical negligence plays its game in strange ways. Sometimes it plays with life; sometimes it gifts an “unwanted child” as in the instant case where the respondent, a poor labourer woman, who already had many children and had opted for sterilisation, developed pregnancy and ultimately gave birth to a female child in spite of sterilisation operation which, obviously, had failed.

2. Smt. Santra, the victim of the medical negligence, filed a suit for recovery of Rs. 2 lakhs as damages for medical negligence, which was decreed for a sum of Rs. 54,000/- with interest at the rate of 12 percent per annum from the date of institution of the suit till the payment of the decretal amount. Two appeals were filed against this decree in the Court of District Judge, Gurgaon, which were disposed of by Additional District Judge, Gurgaon, by a common judgment dated 10.5.1999. Both the appeals — one filed by the State of Haryana and the other by Smt. Santra were dismissed. The second appeal filed by the State of Haryana was summarily dismissed by the Punjab & Haryana High Court on 3.8.1999. It is in these circumstances that the present Special Leave Petition has been filed in this Court.

3. “Sterilisation Scheme”, admittedly, was launched by the Haryana Government and taking advantage of that scheme, Smt. Santra approached the Chief Medical Officer, Gurgaon, for her sterilisation in 1988. The sterilisation operation was performed on her and a certificate to that effect was also issued to her on 4.2.1988 under the signatures of the Medical Officer, General Hospital, Gurgaon. Smt. Santra was assured that full, complete and successful sterilisation operation had been performed upon her and she would not conceive a child in future. But despite the operation, she conceived. When she contacted the Chief Medical Officer and other doctors of the General Hospital, Gurgaon, she was informed that she was not pregnant. Two months later when the pregnancy became apparent, she again approached those doctors who then told her that her sterilisation operation was not successful. Dr. Sushil Kumar Goyal, who was examined as DW 2, stated that the operation related only to the right Fallopian Tube and the left Fallopian Tube was not touched, which indicates that `complete sterilisation’ operation was not done. She requested for an abortion, but was advised not to go in for abortion as the same would be dangerous to her life. She ultimately gave birth to a female child. Smt. Santra already has seven children and the birth of a new child put her to unnecessary burden of rearing up the child as also all the expenses involved in the maintenance of that child, including the expenses towards her clothes and education.

4. It was in these circumstances that the suit was filed by Smt. Santra which was contested by the State, who besides taking up the technical pleas relating to non-maintainability of the suit on various grounds, denied in the written statement that there was any negligence on the part of the Medical Officer of the General Hospital, Gurgaon. It was contended by the defendants that the sterilisation operation performed upon Smt. Santra on 4.2.1988 was done carefully and successfully and there was no negligence on the part of the doctor who performed that operation. It was further pleaded that Smt. Santra had herself put her thumb impression on a paper containing a recital that in case the operation was not successful, she would not claim any damages. It was pleaded that she was estopped from raising the plea of negligence or from claiming damages for an unsuccessful sterilisation operation from the State which, it was further pleaded, was not liable even vicariously for any lapse on the part of the doctor who performed that operation.

5. The Trial Court as also the lower Appellate Court both recorded concurrent findings of fact that the sterilisation operation performed upon Smt. Santra was not ‘complete’ as in that opera