Bombay HC Rejects Wockhardt Hospitals’ ₹1.23 Crore Claim Against Doctor Who Quit With 7-Day Notice

The Bombay High Court has dismissed an appeal by Wockhardt Hospital seeking  compensation of Rs 1.23 crore from Dr. Nitish Vyas, who resigned from work with a week’s notice. 

A bench of judges, including Girish Kulkarni and Neela Gokhale, dismissed the appeal because Wockhardt Hospital had failed to provide any strong proof against respondent’s argument. 

Wockhardt Hospital is a private multispeciality hospital chain.

According to the reports, the judges said that Wockhardt Hospital did not have any factual proof to showcase financial loss that they had incurred due to Dr. Nitish’s exit from his duties with only a week’s notice.

According to Wockhardt Hospital, Dr. Nitish Vyas had signed a contract when he joined the hospital in 2015, which states that he needed to serve a three-month notice period before his resignation.

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Dr. Nitish Vyas  joined Wockhardt Hospitals in August 2015. He served as a Senior Consultant in Internal Medicine and Critical Care at the Rajkot facility.  

He signed a contract in the same month, which explicitly mentioned that he had to serve a three month notice period before terminating his employment. However, Dr. Nitish Vyas quit his job on September 23, 2016, and stopped reporting to the hospital a week later.

Soon after that, the company quickly moved the High Court to recover ₹1.30 crore from Dr. Vyas, a sum covering the financial losses allegedly caused by the early termination of the notice period, along with an annual interest rate of 18%. 

Trial Court Dismissed Wockhardt Hospitals’ Claim Over Lack of Proof of Financial Loss.

The case was transferred to the City Civil and Sessions Court, and on March 16, 2026, the case was dismissed for lack of substantial proof of financial loss because of Dr. Vyas’s abrupt departure from the hospital.

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The company approached the High Court again after the trial court dismissed its case.  

Advocate Mohit Khanna, who was representing Wockhardt Hospitals, said that due to Dr. Vyas’s absence in the hospital, the company was unable to offer special consultant services to their patients. He said that the loss incurred by the hospital due to the breach of contact was hence justified. 

He also said that the hospital had asked for a reasonable estimated amount in compensation from Dr. Vyas.

The High Court said, “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.”

The judges did not accept the appeal and upheld the decision that was passed by the civil court. They said that Wockhardt Hospital only had to provide them with factual proof for this case to proceed further.

(Rh/ARC/MSM)