Medical Standard of Care and Prohibition of Experimental Interventions as Routine Clinical Services

Every medical practitioner owes a legal and fiduciary duty of care to exercise a reasonable degree of care, skill, and knowledge expected of an ordinary prudent practitioner in the same field, adhering to practices acceptable to the contemporary medical profession. Under the established medical negligence jurisprudence, medical liability arises when a practitioner departs from sound, accepted clinical practice and subjects a patient to speculative, obsolete, or unproven procedures lacking credible scientific backing for safety and efficacy. Applying these principles, the administration of stem cells for the treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) fails to meet the requisite standard of care because authoritative national and international medical bodies uniformly recognize the absence of verified empirical evidence supporting its therapeutic efficacy. Consequently, administering such unproven biological procedures as routine clinical practice violates professional duty, and any experimental intervention may only be undertaken within the strict confines of an approved and closely monitored clinical trial or research framework. (Yash Charitable Trust & Ors. Vs Union of India & Ors. | 2026 INSC 96).