Prashant now works as a software engineer but doesn't know how long he will be able to continue because of health problems.

Though Prashant is disappointed with the compensation of one crore rupees, he is proud he was able to get the wheels of justice moving.

Prashant was a final year engineering student in 1990, all of 21 years, when he went in for a regular chest biopsy at Hyderabad's Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS). He came out paralysed waist downwards.

The National Consumer Commission awarded him 15 and a half lakh rupees as compensation in 1993. The software engineer challenged it in the Supreme Court demanding that he should be paid 7 crore rupees.

Says N Satyanarayana, superintendent at NIMS: "It is really a lesson to all medical field that such a compensation is coming to the fore. We have to take a lot of precautions. Medical fraternity has to see how to prevent such litigation in future.''

It took 18 years for the highest court in the country to order a record compensation to be paid to Prashant. But it is not about an individual's life changed forever or of medical negligence by one premier institute. It is about injecting accountability in the healthcare system of the country.