The Bombay High Court on Tuesday asked the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation to pay an interim compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the family of a man who died last year after getting sucked into an Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine at a Mumbai hospital, PTI reported. The civic body runs the BYL Nair Hospital, where the incident took place.

A bench of Justice Akil Kureshi and SJ Kathawalla said that all material evidence had led them to “strongly conclude” that the incident would not have occurred if not for the negligence of the hospital authorities. The court was hearing a petition filed by the family of Rajesh Maru seeking compensation.

The court said that the civic body would pay the compensation amount even while the police investigation into the case and the final hearing in the matter is concluded. The amount should be paid to the family through a five-year fixed deposit in a bank, the bench said.

In January last year, 32-year-old Rajesh Maru was helping an elderly relative get inside the MRI room in the hospital when a ward boy asked him to take the relative’s oxygen cylinder inside, reportedly after assuring him that the machine was switched off. The machine, however, was not turned off, and its magnetic force sucked Maru in, after which his relative and ward boys pulled him out. They took him to the emergency ward as he was bleeding profusely, but he died within 10 minutes.

An internal report prepared by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation accused a ward boy and a female attendant of negligence. However, in the court, the hospital and the civic body opposed the plea filed by Maru’s family, claiming the witnesses’ statements did not establish clearly the reason why the man was pulled into the machine.

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