AGARTALA: A local court in West Tripura on Tuesday convicted leading surgeon Pratap Sanyal under the Probation of Offenders Act for negligence of duty in treating a patient in connection with a case in 2006. He had earlier paid Rs 2 lakh to the patient party as compensation following an order from the consumer court."The convict is placed on probation of good conduct and good behaviour for a period of one year from today and to execute a bond of Rs 10,000 with a surety of a like amount, indicating that he would keep peace and good behaviour for a year," the order stated.The order also directed the probation officer to report before the court from time to time and to report in this matter, if necessary. Accordingly, the probation officer today appeared before the court and took the bond from the convicted doctor.Sanyal is a government doctor and has been practising in his wife's nursing home. He was accused of stitching a patient's body without removing the corrugated drain pipe from her abdomen, which had been inserted during her surgery in January 2006.The patient party immediately contacted the doctor after the patient was discharged when she complained of pain in the abdomen. The patient's husband and a leading photojournalist Bapi Roychodhury said his wife Shrabani Deb, a librarian in a government degree college, was advised to do a CT scan at the Agartala Government Medical College. The scan detected an eight-inch corrugated rubber drain pipe inside her abdomen. But when the matter was reported to Sanyal, he refused to believe it."Sanyal sent us to another private diagnostic centre in Agartala where doctors found the drain pipe inside but refused to give me the report and advised me to go to Sanyal for consultation. For eight months my wife suffered and the pain worsened," Roychodhury alleged.In October 2007, a Kolkata-based hospital operated upon the patient again and took out the drain pipe from the right lower abdominal wall. Even after this, Sanyal allegedly refused to accept the findings of the report and misbehaved with the patient party. Finally, a complaint was lodged for 'insincerity' on the doctor's part.During trail in the lower court, the accused insisted on an inquiry committee as the police charge-sheet accused him of medical negligence. Interestingly, the committee made a report stating that a pipe going missing after operation is rare and boosted Sanyal's case by saying he was quick to react to the situation with proper skill and tact.Sanyal filed a petition in the high court in 2011. However, the HC dismissed the case and allowed the trail court to go for criminal proceedings against Sanyal. Finally, today the court convicted him of negligence of duty.Happy with the judgement, the patient said, "This will send a clear message to medical practitioners across the country and also give courage to patient parties to seek justice if any such incident occurred."

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