Hyderabad, Aug. 24 -- The Telangana High Court has quashed a police case against four staff members of Vijaya Diagnostic Centre who had issued an allegedly false "reactive" Hepatitis B report to a woman ahead of her hernia surgery, saying that criminal law cannot be invoked to punish every instance of professional negligence.

Justice N Tukaramji held that even if there was a lapse in issuing the report without a confirmatory test, this could at most support a civil or consumer complaint over deficient medical service and not a criminal case.

"Penal liability arises only where the negligence is so gross and reckless as to endanger human life. mere inadvertence, an error of judgment, or a lapse in the exercise of due care cannot, by thems...