NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday, while dismissing a special leave petition challenging a Bombay High Court order, observed that healthcare services provided by doctors are not excluded from the ambit of 'services' under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.
The appeal was against a Bombay High Court order where the petition by Medicos Legal Action Group had sought a declaration from the court that services performed by healthcare service providers do not fall under the purview of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 as well as for directing all consumer fora within the territorial jurisdiction of this court not to accept complaints filed under the 2019 Act against healthcare service providers.
“We, therefore, hold that the mere repeal of the 1986 Act by the 2019 Act, without anything more, would not result in exclusion of 'healthcare' services rendered by doctors to patients from the definition of the term 'service'," the bench comprising Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice Hima Kohli said.
During the course of the hearing, Justice DY Chandrachud said the ambit of 'services' is wide enough to include healthcare services provided by doctors. Senior advocate Siddharth Luthra appearing for the petitioner organization referred to a parliamentary speech by a minister on healthcare services not being included in it. To this, Justice DY Chandrachud responded that the speech doesn’t affect the ambit of the 2019 Act. He added that it is implicitly in the wider expression of the definition of 'service' in the Act.
The Bombay High Court had also said that they see no reason to hold that merely because of enactment of the 2019 Act upon repeal of the 1986 Act as well as the parliamentary debates referred to by the petitioning trust, the efficacy of the law laid down in the decision in Indian Medical Association v VP Shanghai case as a binding precedent would stand eroded. It had added that the definition of 'service' in both the acts (repealed 1986 and 2019 Consumer Protection Act) are more or less similar and what has been said of 'service' as defined in two different sections of the old and new Consumer Protection Act.
The high court had observed that they have little reason to hold that services rendered by doctors in lieu of fees/charges therefore are beyond the purview of the 2019 Act.
“We, therefore, hold that mere repeal of the 1986 Act by the 2019 Act, without anything more, would not result in exclusion of healthcare services rendered by doctors to patients from the definition of the term 'service',” the high court order had said.
The high court had imposed a cost of Rs 50,000 on the organisation.