An Indian man who shocked hospital staff when he woke up on an autopsy table just before a post-mortem was about to begin has died, authorities said Wednesday.

On Sunday a hospital doctor in Mumbai mistakenly certified the homeless man, who has been named as Prakash, as dead after police found him unconscious and suffering from multiple infections.

Just as the autopsy was about to start, hospital staff were given the fright of their lives when the man started breathing. They later rushed him to intensive care.

Police and doctors pointed the finger of blame at each other for the misdiagnosis but were in agreement on Wednesday that the man had succumbed to his infections late on Tuesday.

"Yes, he has died," Ashok Dudhe, Mumbai Police deputy commissioner, told AFP.

A senior doctor at Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital in Mumbai, who asked not be named, said the cause of death would only be known after a post-mortem examination was performed.

Mumbai's police are regularly faced with unclaimed dead bodies and media reports have suggested mortuaries are running out of space to hold the corpses.