New Delhi: An additional sessions court has set aside a trial court’s order summoning two corporate directors to face trial for alleged culpable homicide and criminal conspiracy in a patient’s death case. Criminal liability cannot be fastened on company directors solely because of their position, it observed.Additional sessions judge Ashish Rastogi of Karkardooma Courts allowed the criminal revision petitions filed by two doctors challenging a March 2025 order of an additional chief judicial magistrate, which summoned them on charges under IPC.In 2011, a complaint was filed over the death of Allah Rakhi at east Delhi’s Taneja Hospital. According to the complaint, the woman was forcibly admitted and administered an injection that caused her death as part of a pre-planned conspiracy. The complainant alleged tampering of hospital records and absence of a consent form to back the claims.The prosecution maintained that the case attracted sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of IPC rather than medical negligence.The defence, represented by Fanish Kumar Rai, contended that the petitioners had no personal involvement in the alleged offence, lacked any mens rea (criminal intent) and could not be prosecuted for the wrongful acts allegedly committed by another. One of the petitioners was not even a director in 2011 and was not named in the original complaint, Rai argued. The defence also relied on Delhi Medical Council’s finding that “no medical negligence can be attributed” to the hospital’s doctors.Allowing the revisions, the court found that the trial court had summoned the directors solely because of their “capacity as directors of the company”, without attributing any specific role to them. “Not even a single allegation has been made against the revisionists” in the pre-summoning evidence, judge Rastogi observed.Holding that a summoning order must demonstrate due application of mind, the court ruled that the current order suffered from “clear non-application of mind and is manifestly perverse”, and set it aside against both directors.
