01874nam a22001577a 4500 514371 514371 201028b ||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d Singh Malvika. Singh, K.P. 20535 The need to revisit applicability of sections 323-326 of the Indian penal code to a surgeon's act The Indian Police Journal 67(1 ), Jan-Mar, 2020: p. 122-133 There is a lot of grey area and confusion regarding applicability of sections 323-326 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) to a surgeon’s act of surgery. Actually, when the IPC was written, surgical science was in its infancy. Therefore, the writers of the IPC focussed only on injuries inflicted as an act of violence and could not envision any injury attributable to an act of surgery. The definitions of ‘hurt’, ‘grievous hurt’ and ‘voluntarily causing hurt’ given in sections 319,320 and 321 IPC respectively and mechanical interpretation of the ingredients of these sections have led to a gross error, resulting in discrepancy and confusion and implication of surgeons for their acts of surgery under sections 323-326 of the IPC. It is not legally correct to attribute criminality to a surgeon’s act of surgery. Though a surgeon’s act may be classified as a civil wrong attracting penalties like payment of compensation and damages under the Law of Tort and Civil Laws. The present article analyses, in detail, the reasons as to why these general provisions relating to causing hurt, as contained in the IPC, cannot be applied to a surgeon’s act of surgery. – Reproduced Hurt, Grievous Hurt, Grievous Injury, Dangerous weapon, Violence, Surgeon’s Act, Surgery, life threatening, Section 320, Section 326, Voluntarily, Section 319, Section 321. 18999 The Indian Police Journal HEALTH SERVICES AR 0 0 ddc 0 0 388379 IIPA IIPA 2020-10-28 67(1), Jan-Mar, 2020: p.122-133 AR123384 2020-10-28 AR