Delhi nursing home to pay Rs 20 lakh to woman who can’t conceive due to medical negligence
The Delhi consumer commission has ordered a Daryaganj nursing home to pay Rs 20 lakh compensation to a woman who lost fertility due to medical negligence and misdiagnosis of ectopic pregnancy.
Highlighting that medicines had been prescribed “blindly without ruling out complications”, a District Consumer Commission in Delhi directed a nursing home in Central Delhi’s Daryaganj to pay Rs 20 lakh to a 40-year-old woman who lost her ability to conceive and endured loss of her fallopian tube due to medical negligence of a doctor.
“OP1 (doctor) failed to investigate the problem of the complainant with due diligence despite her known pregnancy and high-risk patient history and prescribed medicines blindly without ruling out complications…such a casual approach in a high-risk pregnancy amounts to negligence,” the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (Central) said in its order dated December 18.
Observing that the injury had caused the complainant “irreparable harm and deprivation of her legitimate expectation of motherhood”, the Commission directed the nursing home to pay Rs 20 lakh as compensation.
“This Commission is of considered opinion that an amount of Rs 20 lakh is fair, proportionate, legally justified, and commensurate with the nature, gravity, and irreversible consequences of the injury suffered by the complainant,” it ruled, while noting that no amount of money could reduce the “lifelong pain and emotional suffering” that the woman had to endure.
The Commission was hearing a medical negligence case filed by one Samreen against doctor Kuljit Kau Gill who was working at the Family Health Care Centre in Daryaganj. Samreen had a history of a spontaneous delivery of dead twin foetuses.
In July 2020, she undertook a urine pregnancy test at home which turned out positive. On July 24, she visited the nursing home in Daryaganj to confirm the pregnancy. Gill allegedly confirmed the pregnancy solely on the basis of the urine pregnancy test result, and did not conduct any independent check-up.
Samreen was prescribed certain medicines and given two injections. But she knew that something wasn’t right. A month later, her pain still persisted. It was only after two months when her pain became unbearable that she decided to consult another doctor.
Much to Samreen’s shock, reports from the other doctor detected the presence of a dead embryo in her womb. Eventually, her fallopian tube had to be removed to save her life. Samreen was informed that she would never be able to conceive again due to extensive internal damage.
The Commission observed that appropriate detection of the ectopic pregnancy — a state where a fertilized egg implants outside the uterus and cannot develop into a baby, requiring urgent medical treatment — could have avoided the permanent infertility.
“A timely and appropriate treatment could have detected an ectopic pregnancy at an early stage, and permanent deprivation of future motherhood of the complainant could have been avoided. The complainant could have been spared the physical and mental trauma and the financial burden,” it held.
Nirbhay Thakur is a Senior Correspondent with The Indian Express who primarily covers district courts in Delhi and has reported on the trials of many high-profile cases since 2023.
Professional Background
Education: Nirbhay is an economics graduate from Delhi University.
Beats: His reporting spans the trial courts, and he occasionally interviews ambassadors and has a keen interest in doing data stories.
Specializations: He has a specific interest in data stories related to courts.
Core Strength: Nirbhay is known for tracking long-running legal sagas and providing meticulous updates on high-profile criminal trials.
Recent notable articles
In 2025, he has written long form articles and two investigations. Along with breaking many court stories, he has also done various exclusive stories.
1) A long form on Surender Koli, accused in the Nithari serial killings of 2006. He was acquitted after spending 2 decades in jail. was a branded man. Deemed the “cannibal" who allegedly lured children to his employer’s house in Noida, murdered them, and “ate their flesh” – his actions cited were cited as evidence of human depravity at its worst. However, the SC acquitted him finding various lapses in the investigation. The Indian Express spoke to his lawyers and traced the 2 decades journey.
2) For decades, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has been at the forefront of the Government’s national rankings, placed at No. 2 over the past two years alone. It has also been the crucible of campus activism, its protests often spilling into national debates, its student leaders going on to become the faces and voices of political parties of all hues and thoughts. The Indian Express looked at all court cases spanning over two decades and did an investigation.
3) Investigation on the 700 Delhi riots cases. The Indian Express found that in 17 of 93 acquittals (which amounted to 85% of the decided cases) in Delhi riots cases, courts red-flag ‘fabricated’ evidence and pulled up the police.
Signature Style
Nirbhay’s writing is characterized by its procedural depth. He excels at summarizing 400-page chargesheets and complex court orders into digestible news for the general public.
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