Jodhpur, Nov. 2 -- Rajasthan high court has set aside a Permanent Lok Adalat award granting compensation in cases where women conceived despite undergoing sterilisation operations, holding that medical negligence cannot be presumed merely because the procedure failed. Justice Mukesh Rajpurohit passed the order on Friday while allowing two writ petitions filed by the state government against orders passed by the Permanent Lok Adalat, District Legal Services Authority, Udaipur, on May 3, 2013. Referring to the earlier judgment, the bench noted that the Permanent Lok Adalat had made an award without recording any finding that the sterilisation operations had failed due to negligence by the doctors concerned. It emphasised that there was no cogent and specific evidence to establish a lack of proper care or caution during the procedures. It also referred to the Supreme Court's ruling in State of Punjab v. Shiv Ram, which recognised that pregnancy after sterilisation could result either from medical negligence or natural causes, including spontaneous recanalisation. A doctor can be held liable only when failure is attributable to negligence, it noted. The bench observed that in absence of proof of negligence, the surgeon could not be held liable for compensation, nor could the state be held vicariously liable. The bench clarified that setting aside of the compensation awards would not prevent the women from seeking financial assistance under the scheme notified by the state government for sterilisation failure cases....