IA u/s 34 CPA to frame prelinary issues to decide jurisdiction of Dt Commision

Dear Client,
There are two legislations commonly used by a victim of medical negligence, 1) by lodging an FIR under Section 304A of IPC(causing death by negligence)(now Section 106 of BNS) at the police station, and 2) by filing a complaint under Section 35 of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019. The essential ingredients of Section 304A of IPC are that (1) There must be the death of a person; (2) The act of the accused must cause the death; (3) The death must be caused due to any rash or negligent act of the accused; and (4) the act of the accused must not amount to culpable homicide. Section 34 of the CPA, 2019 defines enhancing the pecuniary and territorial jurisdiction of the District Commission, which was earlier defined under Section 11 of the CPA, 19856. Thus, your IA challenging the jurisdiction of the District Commission lacks merit, while you stated that the complaint is exclusively a subject matter of the civil court. It is settled law that in the complaint of medical negligence, the hospital and the doctors render services to the patient. A relationship exists between the parties that is considered as a Service provider and the consumer and for any negligence or deficiency in service on the part of service provider, the aggrieved consumer can raise a consumer dispute as defined under Section 2(8) of the CPA, 2019 following the procedure laid down in the Section 35 of the CPA, 2019. The citation of 2015 under the Act, 1986, you mentioned in your IA, does not apply to the Act of 2019 and, accordingly, is not maintainable. Section 100 of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, states that the provisions of the Act are in addition to and not in derogation of any other law in force, meaning the Act enhances consumer protection without replacing existing laws. In the Case of Engineers (P) Ltd. And Anr vs State Of West Bengal And Ors judgement dated 18 February, 2019, the Calcutta High Court held that the trend of decisions of this Court is that the jurisdiction of the consumer forum should not and would not be curtailed unless there is an express provision prohibiting the consumer forum to take up the matter which falls within the jurisdiction of Civil Court or any other forum established under some enactment. The Court had gone to the extent of saying that if two different fora have jurisdiction to entertain the dispute regarding the same subject, the jurisdiction of the consumer forum would not be barred, and the power of the consumer forum to adjudicate upon the dispute could not be negated. Hope the query stands clarified.