New Delhi: The Supreme Court of India has quashed criminal proceedings that had been pending for nearly two decades against a paediatric surgeon from Chennai who performed an orchidectomy on a one-and-a-half-year-old child during surgery for an undescended testicle. Setting aside the Madras High Court’s refusal to quash the case, the Court held that continuing the prosecution would amount to nothing but an abuse of the process of the court.
The judgment was delivered on 06.04.2026 by a Bench comprising Justice Pamidigantam Sri Narasimha and Justice Manoj Misra.
The child was admitted to Sri Ramachandra Medical Centre, Porur, Chennai, on 23.08.2005 for a hernia operation. During the procedure, the operating surgeon, Dr. S. Balagopal, a consultant paediatric surgeon at the hospital, found the left testicle to be small, cystic, and dysplastic, amounting essentially to a nubbin of non-functional tissue. He performed an orchidectomy, i.e., surgical removal of the testicle, instead of the orchidopexy that had originally been planned, on the ground that retaining such a testicle would serve no purpose and could carry a future risk of malignancy.
The child’s father subsequently filed a complaint alleging that consent had been obtained only for orchidopexy, i.e., repositioning of the testicle, and not for its removal, and that the word “orchidectomy” had been inserted into the printed consent form by interpolation after the fact to protect the doctor. A First Information Report was registered at PS Ambathur in 2006 under multiple provisions of the Indian Penal Code, including those relating to forgery and causing hurt. After investigation, the police filed a charge sheet, and the Magistrate took cognizance of the case, which remained pending as C.C. No. 13 of 2008 before the Judicial Magistrate No. 1, Poonamallee.
In the meantime, the Madras High Court, in 2013, had directed the constitution of a Medical Board comprising specialists in paediatric surgery, pathology, and oncology from Government Stanley Medical College, Chennai, to examine the matter. The Medical Board submitted its report and concluded that orchidectomy was an appropriate and medically recognised procedure in circumstances where an undescended testicle presents as a nubbin of tissue, given that such tissue serves no useful purpose and carries a risk of malignant transformation. The Board added that the procedure ought to have been carried out after obtaining the consent of the parents.
A subsequent letter from the Director of Medical and Rural Health Services, Chennai, further clarified that Dr. Balagopal had obtained consent in the standard printed form used across all surgeries at the hospital, that he had explained to the parents the risks of retaining the affected testicle, including the possibility of abscess formation and malignancy, and that prosecution could not be maintained against him since the procedure was performed in accordance with medical ethics. Despite this, the High Court declined to quash the proceedings when approached by the doctor again in 2016, directing instead that the trial be expedited. It was this order that was challenged before the Supreme Court.
Before the Supreme Court, the doctor’s counsel argued that both the Medical Board’s report and the investigating officer’s final report had exonerated him of any negligence; that the procedure performed was medically appropriate; that the consent form, on its face, showed both orchidopexy and orchidectomy written with a slash between them, indicating that both were contemplated; and that there was no forensic report suggesting that the entry of “orchidectomy” had been made in different ink or handwriting.
The Supreme Court, after examining the consent form and the material on record, agreed. It observed that no malice was attributed to the doctor; that medical opinion unanimously supported the procedure as appropriate; that the consent form already obtained had not been shown to be forged by any forensic evidence; and that the entry of both procedures, separated by a slash, indicated that orchidectomy had always been one of the options. In these circumstances, the Court held that though questions of document tampering are ordinarily matters for trial, the High Court’s power under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is not absolutely barred from examining questions of fact where necessary to prevent abuse of process. Exercising that power, the Court quashed the entire proceedings.
The Court also took the occasion to recall the settled legal position on criminal prosecution of medical professionals, referring to the Constitution Bench decision in Jacob Mathew v. State of Punjab, (2005) 6 SCC 1, which held that to prosecute a medical professional for criminal negligence, it must be shown that the accused did something or failed to do something which no medical professional of ordinary sense and prudence would have done or failed to do in the given circumstances, and that the hazard taken must have been of such a nature that the resulting injury was most likely imminent.
The appeal was accordingly allowed, the impugned High Court order was set aside, and C.C. No. 13 of 2008 was quashed.
For the Appellant: Mr. K. Ravi Anantha Padmanabhan, Sr. Adv.; Mr. T. R. B. Sivakumar, AOR; Mr. Deva Vrat Anand, Adv.
For the Respondent-State: Mr. V. Krishnamurthy, Sr. A.A.G.; Mr. D. Kumanan, AOR; Ms. Deepa S., Adv.; Mr. Sheikh F. Kalia, Adv.; Mr. Veshal Tyagi, Adv.; Mr. Chinmay Anand Panigrahi, Adv.; Ms. Azka Sheikh Kalia, Adv.; Respondent-in-person
Case Title: Dr. S. Balagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu and Anr., Criminal Appeal arising out of SLP (Crl.) No. 14803/2023, 2026 INSC 319
