For providing poor dental treatment to his patient, a Vashi-based dentist was recently penalised by the additional Thane district consumer dispute redressal forum recently. The dentist has been told to pay Rs10,000 for causing the complainant mental agony. The forum has also asked him to pay an additional amount of Rs5,000 towards the complainant's litigation cost.
The case dates back to December 21, 2009, when Bharat Shastri went to Citizen Dental Clinic, run by Dr Anand Krushnamurti, to seek dental treatments such as fixing a crown, composite filling, scaling, polishing and lower removable partial dentures( RPD). The dentist accordingly made his treatment plan and thereby informed the complainant that the cost for the treatment would come up to Rs9,700.
The forum's order copy reads: "However, in January 2010, the complainant had made certain changes in the treatment plan, thereby asking the dentist to replace the ordinary crown with a metal-free Orion crown, which had an eight-year warranty. The dentist accordingly accepted the changes and accordingly informed Shastri of the revised bill amount, which came up to Rs17,300. Shastri thereby accepted the new plan and immediately paid an amount of Rs5,000 as the advance amount," reads the forum's order copy.
By December 2010 both the permanent crowns were fixed on Shastri's teeth and accordingly, he was issued with a bill. After going through the bills, Shastri realised that instead using of Orion crowns, PFM crowns were fixed on his teeth which were neither metal free nor having warranty. Aggrieved by the dentist's negligent attitude, Shastri approached the forum and filed a complaint.
After going through the complaint, the forum asked Dr Krushnamurti to file a reply. In his reply, the dentist claimed that it was a trick adopted by the complaint to extort money from him. The doctor claimed that at one point of time, Shastri at one point had informed him that he was not able to pay for the revised bill amount, which was why he was given the ordinary crowns.
However, not accepting this the explanation, the forum held that the dentist's act must have caused mental agony to Shastri.
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