Mumbai, September 8, 2026: The Bombay High Court has dismissed an appeal filed by a private hospital, which sought over Rs 1.23 crore in damages from a senior physician who resigned after providing only seven days' notice.
A bench of Justices Girish Kulkarni and Neela Gokhale ruled that Wockhardt Hospitals Ltd. had failed to provide concrete proof of actual financial loss caused by the departure.
Dispute Over Notice Period
The dispute stems from an agreement signed in August 2015, under which Dr Nitish Vyas served as a Senior Consultant in Internal Medicine and Critical Care at Wockhardt’s Rajkot facility. The contract stipulated a three-month notice period for termination. However, Dr Vyas submitted his resignation in September 2023 and ceased work seven days later.
In response, the hospital filed a summary suit claiming Rs 1.44 crore in total, including Rs 1,23,79,637 for lost business. The hospital calculated this figure by taking the doctor’s average monthly billing over his final three months and projecting it through August 2017. After the trial court dismissed the suit ex parte in March 2026 for lack of material evidence, the hospital appealed to the High Court.
Hospital Claims Business Loss
Advocate Mohit Khanna, representing the hospital, argued that precise accounting is impossible when a key physician leaves unexpectedly. "The loss of business was calculated on a reasonable estimate of potential loss, and no exact figure could be expected in a case where a senior doctor suddenly departs from the hospital," Khanna argued, contending that compensation was due under Section 73 of the Indian Contract Act.
Court Seeks Proof Of Actual Loss
The High Court rejected the argument, emphasising that statutory compensation requires evidence of actual, real losses rather than hypothetical calculations.
"The basic obligation of the appellant was to establish that it actually had suffered such losses," the bench noted. The court pointed out that Wockhardt presented no evidence showing patients were turned away, nor did it demonstrate any effort to hire a replacement physician to mitigate damages.
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Finding no merit in the appeal, the bench upheld the trial court's order and dismissed the case.
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