Kannav Sharma

Advocate!
Punjab and Haryana High Court.
In-House counsel! Speaker! Seeker! Women rights activist.

[Kannav Sharma @AdvKannavSharma]

@IndianForce___ Without a doubt.

[Archana Tiwari @ArchanaRajdharm]

बात पर जरा गौर करिए …..
विचार करना चाहिए क्या ?

#PahalgamTerroristAttack #PahalgamAttack #पहलगाम

[Kannav Sharma @AdvKannavSharma]

@DeepikaBhardwaj An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind. But it would be a safe world.

[Kannav Sharma @AdvKannavSharma]

@DeepikaBhardwaj Real justice.

[Kannav Sharma @AdvKannavSharma]

@333maheshwariii There are cases where boy family promised that their boy is working in reputed MNC who in reality never did any job. In some cases, boy’s family portrayed that their son is graduated from IIT but in reality he just had a diploma in IT from a private uni.

[Kannav Sharma @AdvKannavSharma]

@DeepikaBhardwaj Filing and fighting for visitation rights to meet his daughters will be the right step forward.

[Kannav Sharma @AdvKannavSharma]

@DeepikaBhardwaj ‘May’

[Kannav Sharma @AdvKannavSharma]

Happy Independence Day. #HappyIndependenceDay

[Anand Ranganathan @ARanganathan72]

Israel will exist until Islam obliterates it. Palestine is Waqf land. It is the duty of every Muslim to liberate it. Muslims must fight Jews and kill them. - Hamas Charter

Any Indian supporting Hamas or its current operation is a terror enabler. My views:

[Monica Verma @TrulyMonica]

I am not a Brahmin but why is it that every single Brahmin I know comes from a poor background trying to make a decent living backed by sheer merit?

[Pragya Paarijat Singh @parijatpragya]

So sad and so very painful !
I remember my brief stint with a Senior Advocate who used to make me work on SLP’s on Saturday/Sunday from 8.30am until 11.30 PM , expected me to make coffee since the staff was on off and called me “incompetent clown” in return after working my ass-off for 12-14hrs each day !

For coffee I said “no ”politely once and he apparently lost his shit . Said “don’t you make coffee for your husband ?” . I smiled and said no !
Never asked me again but left no stone unturned to make me feel like a piece of merit less shit . I had to resign under immense duress and upon asking to do so , he offered me a better salary and said “you were never the fish out of water. Rethink and reconsider your decision . This office will take u places”. I declined respectfully and decided never to work at a toxic place which has no respect for it’s resources.

#lawtwitter

[Kannav Sharma @AdvKannavSharma]

Happy Independence Day.

[Kannav Sharma @AdvKannavSharma]

@gemsofcourts Hypocrisy at its extreme.

[Tonmoy Goswami @tonmoygo]

In 2004, my dad filed a case of medical negligence against one of India's most powerful hospitals viz. Batra Hospital, Delhi and Padmashree awardee cardiologist Dr Upendra Kaul.

Case was filed in the state consumer court, Delhi & my dad asked for a compensation of Rs. 80 lakh. (80,00,000 INR)

After 11 years, in 2015 my dad passed away, without getting justice.

My senior citizen widowed mother decided not to give up.

TLDR; we won the case after 19 long years, but what transpired is a story that teaches you that, in India, it's better if you can settle outside the court.

But, sometimes it's not about the compensation, settlement, or winning a case; it's about making sure the perpetrators are taught a lesson so that the negligence never gets repeated. It's also about closure.

Here's the story of how a common middle-class Indian family from Assam fought a mighty & powerful establishment in their own city (Delhi) for 19 long years and brought the hospital to its knees:

----

It's a long story, but I'll try to keep it short.

In 2004, my dad went to Delhi alone for a routine heart check-up & returned with a pace-maker in his chest.

Escalated too quickly? Exactly my mother's reaction when he called from Delhi asking her to immediately board a flight from our hometown in Guwahati, Assam.

Long story short:
1. Dad went for a diagnostic study called EPS. Batra hospital took consent for it.
2. Protocol is that if EPS study came abnormal, RFA is suggested as the next step as a treatment after discussing with the patient. Patient needs to provide a fresh consent for RFA.
3. However, if the pathways are too close, RFA is risky & is not recommended as it can be fatal.
4. EPS shows if pathways are close or not.

My dad's EPS showed that pathways are close.

In spite of that, Batra hospital and its cardiologists went ahead and performed RFA:
a. Without consulting with the patient or relatives.
b. Without taking fresh consent as it's a separate procedure.

Things then went south real quick.

----

Due to closeness of pathways, obvious complications occurred & my dad's life was in danger. The only way to save him? Put a pace-maker in his chest immediately!

So that's what they did: put a temporary pace-maker while informing my mother to immediately catch a flight to Delhi so that they can put a permanent pace-maker the next day.

And you would think, the ordeal would end there? Cute.

----

My parents returned home after a few days & dad was supposed to recover.

But instead, we saw his chest area getting swollen day by day. We freaked out and consulted a cardiologist in Guwahati. And they confirmed the worse: the pace-maker was not installed properly and one of the pipes pierced through his heart.

He needs an urgent emergency open-heart surgery to fix the pace-maker.

So, my family went through another few days of anxiety, stress and disbelief.

----

My dad, is known in our friends and family circles as someone who's always been an super-active person; always engaged in some form of work; be it gardening, fixing electronics, repairing things around the house. My mother used to call him the perfect engineer since he could fix anything compared to the other two engineers in the family viz. me and my sister who were lazy compared to him.

The series of surgeries and a pace-maker did slow my dad down, but couldn't kill his spirit. However, we could see the difference. We would pace himself while climbing stairs etc.

It would hurt us a lot. And him too.

So he decided to drag Batra Hospital to the consumer forum.

----

Our family advocate resides in Kolkata and he agreed to take the case up pro-bono. We assumed it'll be an open and shut case. And since it's consumer court, we assumed it will be quick justice.

Oh, we are so wrong. So so wrong.

My dad attended every single hearing of the case from 2004 till 2015 when he passed away. He used to take a flight from Guwahati while booking a ticket for our advocate from Kolkata. Then there was cost of accommodation in Delhi.

Attending these hearings was no cheap affair. When you add up each hearing over 19 years...it quickly adds up to a large amount.

----

On many occasions, someone from hearing judge bench would be absent so nothing would happen. You get a new date, months in the future.
Or the opposite party advocate would be absent, or cite lame excuses to stall the proceedings. E.g. once the opposite advocate asked the court for a new date since his colleague was stuck in traffic and couldn't reach the court. And we were given a new date!

Imagine the frustration.

And this happened over 11 years till my dad passed away.

----

When dad passed away, Batra Hospital might have heaved a sigh of relief. Can't blame them; they had not yet met my mother.

She decided to continue the fight. That's when I started taking active participation as well.

Let's take a pause and understand why it took so many years?

1. It's a medical case and the judges felt inadequate without proper medical advice.
2. The opposite party was a Padmashree awardee celebrated cardiologist and the hospital was founded by people walking the corridoors of power.
3. Deliberate delays of absenteeism, withdrawing evidence from court etc.

The court asked an independent medical board for their recommendations. The medical board tilted in our favour for obvious reasons: the medical negligence was apparent.

----

Batra hospital tried to confuse the judge's bench by claiming that consent was taken for RFA. When asked to provide evidence, they would repeatedly provide the EPS consent form. This would delay the case and do nothing else.

They also never submitted the EPS traces to the court. They claimed that the traces were provided to my family and they have no record in their system. Which was utterly bullsh*t because we didn't have the traces.

They didn't provide the traces as it would immediately shut the case. Traces will show that the pathways were close, so RFA was not warranted.

Unable to provide consent form & Unable to provide traces went against them.

And in 2018, we won the case in the Delhi state consumer forum. The court awarded 10 lakh (10,00,000 INR) compensation with 7% simple interest from the date of filing the case.

While it was nothing compared to the asked compensation of 80 lakhs, we were happy as it was never about the money anyway.

But our happiness was short-lived, as Batra Hospital decided to appeal the judgement in the higher court: The National Consumer Forum.

----

And so we were back to square one. I promised mom that even if it takes another 14 years, I'll continue the fight.

And so we did. Date after date, hearing after hearing. Same BS all over again.

However, our advocate Mr. Neguive Ahmed is one of the best in the business. A senior citizen himself, he was so frustrated that he took it upon himself to turn Godmode on. I witnessed one of his argument session at court and he ruthlessly thrashed the opposing party left, right and center. He didn't even spare the bench & schooled them for taking forever to deliver a judgement.

This time, he was not going to let it continue for 10 more years. So he pushed at every hearing for shorter dates.

And in 2023, we won again!

Batra was brought to its knees. They can appeal again, yes; but it has to be the Supreme Court.

And after getting their a** whopped twice in a row for 19 years, they didn't have the courage to approach Supreme Court. And finally gave up.

----

It begs a question: Did we really win? And even if we did win technically, at what cost?

I would say, it comes at a price of your mental wellbeing, financial expense, a lot of frustration, shameless advocates and it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Batra's advocate is so shameless, he allegedly told our advocate, "We have worked for so many years on the case, won't you give us something? Your client has won a hefty amount"

Bloody bloodsucker! You worked AGAINST us all these years and now you want 'something' for your 'service'?!

----

So, is justice delayed justice denied?

Definitely yes, my family is just happy that the case is over. But we are also happy to have never given up. I understand that it may not be financially possible for everyone to not give up on a long legal battle, but that's what they want: drown you into date after date so that one fine day, you simply give up because it starts looking futile.

If you can, persist. As my mom did and my dad would have.

Even if it's justice denied, it's justice nonetheless for the future patients.

It's like paying for the next person.

At least the next time they perform any surgery that requires consent, they will remember the Goswami family.

Thanks for reading.

[Abhijit Majumder @abhijitmajumder]

Good time to listen to @jsaideepak again on community defence, Bajrang Dal and so-called liberals. #MewatTerrorAttack

[Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri @vivekagnihotri]

WARNING: This is not Syria.

[Kannav Sharma @AdvKannavSharma]

@palvikas527 One of my fav book.

[Anand Ranganathan @ARanganathan72]

Historic. The number of cases pending in Indian courts today crossed the 50 million mark - 50.2 million to be precise. That's the entire population of South Korea.

At our current pace of dispensing justice, it would take 323 years to clear this backlog.

[Karthik Narayanan @KarthikRam1974]

Year 1959
Place Amritsar.

Some Indian Army Officers & their wives went to Railway Station to see off one of their colleagues. Some goons made lewd remarks against the women & tried to molest them. The Army Officers chased the goons who took shelter in a nearby Cinema Theatre.

The matter was reported to Commanding Officer Col Jyothi Mohan Sen. On learning about the incident, the Col ordered the Cinema Hall to be surrounded by troops. All the goons were dragged out, the leader of the goons was so heady and drunk with power; who was none other than the son of Chief Minister of Punjab, Pratap Singh Kairon, the close associate of the then PM, Jawahar Lal Nehru.

All the goons were stripped to their underwear, paraded in the streets of Amritsar & later interned in the Cantonment. Next day, the Chief Minister became furious & tried to release his son from Indian Army's incarceration.

You know what happened ?

His vehicle was not allowed to go in to the Cantonment as VIP Vehicle, he was compelled to walk all the way to meet the Colonel. The infuriated Chief Minister, Kairon complained about the whole affair to PM, Jawaharlal Nehru.

The perplexed, the so called Bharat Ratna Prime Minister Nehru instead of questioning his confidante Pratap Singh Kairon, sought explanation from the Army Chief, General Thimmayya for the conduct of his Officers.

You know what was replied?

If we cannot defend the honour of our women, how can you expect us to defend the honour of our Country ?"

Nehru was dumbfounded. That was the Story of a brave Soldier who defied the Prime Minister.

This article was contributed by Maj. Gen. Dhruv C Katoch in the magazine "Salute to the Indian soldier."* this needs to be shared .

JAI HIND

[Shivam Singh @_SinghShivam]

Lawyers who speak in the chamber are usually silent in the courtroom

Lawyers who are quiet in the chamber are usually argumentative in the courtroom