expert opinion - The Legal Chamber

Degree Name vs. Subject Study: Supreme Court Orders Reinstatement of Employee Wrongfully Terminated

2Mar

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Supreme Court

Degree Name vs. Subject Study: Supreme Court Orders Reinstatement of Employee Wrongfully Terminated

The Supreme Court held that employer decisions cannot be purely mechanical, insisting only on a degree's title while ignoring the actual curriculum studied. Relying on a committee report prepared without affording a hearing violates natural justice. Furthermore, an expert authority's eligibility opinion must be considered; ignoring it renders a termination order arbitrary and unsustainable. Facts Of The Case: The appellant, Laxmikant Sharma, was appointed on a contractual basis as a Monitoring and Evaluation Consultant in Madhya Pradesh's Public Health & Engineering Department on April 26, 2013, after responding to an advertisement that required a "Postgraduate degree in Statistics." He held an M.Com. degree, completed in 1999, which included Business Statistics and Indian Economic S...

Supreme Court Says Failure in Treatment Isn’t Always Negligence :A Landmark Ruling for Doctors

The Supreme Court held that consumer fora cannot travel beyond the pleadings to construct a new case for the complainant. It emphasized that medical negligence cannot be presumed merely because of an adverse treatment outcome. The Court ruled that the NCDRC overstepped its jurisdiction by basing its finding on antenatal care negligence, which was never pleaded by the complainant, and set aside the order. Facts Of The Case: A patient, Charanpreet Kaur, died from atonic Post-Partum Haemorrhage (PPH) hours after delivering a stillborn child at Deep Nursing Home, Chandigarh, under the care of Dr. Kanwarjit Kochhar. Her husband, Manmeet Singh Mattewal, filed a consumer complaint alleging medical negligence specifically in the post-delivery treatment. He contended the nursing home was il...

Supreme Court Denies Specific Performance Over Tainted Agreement: Readiness to Pay Not Enough

The Supreme Court upheld the denial of specific performance, ruling that a material alteration in the sale agreement—visibly apparent from the use of different ink for a property's description—vitiated the contract. Courts are not always obligated to seek expert opinion under Section 73 of the Evidence Act when such an alteration is plainly discernible upon a mere perusal of the document itself. Facts Of The Case: The plaintiff-appellant, Syed Basheer Ahmed, entered into a sale agreement dated July 15, 1984, with the first defendant for the purchase of two properties: Item No. 1 (owned by the first defendant) and Item No. 2 (owned by a third party). The total agreed consideration was Rs. 56,000/-, with an advance of Rs. 1,000/- paid. The agreement stipulated that the sale deed was to be ...