National Medical Commission Defies Own Rule, Rejects Patient Appeal

In August 2026, letters from the National Medical Commission reached Arka Chakraborty at his home in Hooghly, West Bengal. They returned his appeals against the Karnataka Medical Council’s decisions in his brother’s death, along with the demand drafts he had paid as fees. Both appeals, the Commission said, were “not maintainable.”

Arka’s younger brother, Arnab, died in Bengaluru on 27 April 2022, aged 23, less than five months after open-heart surgery. For nearly four years, Arka pursued complaints against doctors at two Bengaluru hospitals before the Karnataka Medical Council (KMC). On 16 May 2026, the KMC dismissed both. When he turned to the country’s apex medical regulator, he was told he had no right to be heard.

Also Read:  A 23-Year-Old Heart Patient's Death Still Haunts His Family

The reason the National Medical Commission (NMC) gave him sits uneasily with its own record. In 2023, the Commission brought back the rules that give patients and their families the right to appeal. In 2024, it told the Supreme Court those rules were in force. The replies sent to Arka mention neither.

“I am deeply disheartened that the NMC has rejected my appeal,” Arka told The Probe. “Where do patients who don’t get justice go, if not to the NMC?”

How Arka’s Complaints Were Dismissed

Arnab was born with Tetralogy of Fallot, a congenital heart defect that reduces the oxygen reaching the body. On 6 December 2021, he underwent corrective open-heart surgery at Narayana Hrudayalaya in Bengaluru. Days later his condition deteriorated, and subsequent MRI scans recorded hypoxic brain injury. In February 2022, he was moved to Bhagwan Mahaveer Jain Hospital for neuro-rehabilitation. He died there on 27 April 2022, a day after surgery to remove his sternal wires. His death certificate recorded multi-organ failure due to septicaemia in shock.

On 18 August 2022, Arka filed complaints against doctors at both hospitals. According to the KMC’s own order, his complaint against the Narayana Hrudayalaya doctors was also forwarded to the state council by the Principal Secretary of Karnataka’s Health Department and by the Secretary of the National Medical Commission. The NMC, in other words, sent his complaint into the system.

The doctors denied any negligence before the council. On 16 May 2026, the KMC dismissed both complaints, holding that Arka had failed to establish medical negligence or professional misconduct. The council recorded that Arka’s cross-examination of the doctors was marked “Nil” because of his absence, and that he filed no written arguments. In the Bhagwan Mahaveer Jain case, it added that he had produced no expert opinion. The council had earlier rejected an application by Dr Kunal Saha, President of the patient rights group People for Better Treatment, to represent Arka in the proceedings.

On 29 July 2026, Arka appealed against both orders to the National Medical Commission. Both appeals were returned.

Also Read:  National Medical Commission: How It Lied and Misled the Supreme Court

What the NMC Told Arka

The replies from the NMC’s Ethics and Medical Registration Board (EMRB) to both appeals were on the same lines. The letter of 13 August 2026, concerning the Bhagwan Mahaveer Jain case and issued “with the approval of the Director (Ethics)”, rests on two grounds.

The first is Section 30(3) of the National Medical Commission Act, 2019, which reads: “A medical practitioner or professional who is aggrieved by any action taken by a State Medical Council under sub-section (2) may prefer an appeal to the Ethics and Medical Registration Board against such action.”

The second is a meeting of the Commission on 6 October 2021, which, according to the letter, reiterated that only medical practitioners are entitled to appeal. On that basis, the letter states, all appeals filed by non-medical practitioners since 25 September 2020 “shall be returned.”

The letter is signed by a Section Officer. It does not say whether any member of the Board considered the appeal.

The Rule the NMC Brought Back

What the replies leave out is a decision the National Medical Commission itself took in August 2023.

On 2 August 2023, the Commission notified the National Medical Commission Registered Medical Practitioner (Professional Conduct) Regulations, 2023. Regulation 44 confined the right of appeal to doctors. Three weeks later, on 23 August 2023, the EMRB issued Notification No. R-12013/01/2022/Ethics. It held the 2023 regulations in abeyance “with immediate effect” and adopted the Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations, 2002, “as if the same have been made by the Commission” under the NMC Act.

Regulation 8.8 of those 2002 Regulations leaves little room for doubt: “Any person aggrieved by the decision of the State Medical Council on any complaint against a delinquent physician, shall have the right to file an appeal to the MCI within a period of 60 days from the date of receipt of the order passed by the said Medical Council.”

The provision was added to the ethics code in 2004, following directions from the Supreme Court to give patients a remedy against erring doctors.

On 14 August 2024, during the hearing of a petition filed by Uttam Chand Meena before a Supreme Court bench headed by then Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, counsel for the NMC and the Union Government told the court that the 2023 regulations had been withdrawn and the 2002 Regulations reinstated. The Probe reported this in October 2024, along with documents showing that the Commission continued to return patients’ appeals in the weeks that followed, including in communications dated 3 September and 14 October 2024.

Arka filed his appeals nearly three years after the 2023 notification. The National Medical Commission returned them by relying on a decision taken in 2021, before that notification existed.

Also Read:  NMC and its Headless Ethics Board: Shielding Negligent Doctors

Does the Law Bar Patients?

Section 30(3) of the National Medical Commission Act, 2019 sets out what a doctor may do. Dr Kunal Saha argues that nothing in it takes away the right of patients.

“If you read the section, it says aggrieved doctors can appeal. It never says victims cannot appeal. The NMC’s reliance on Section 30(3) is wrong,” Saha told The Probe.

He also points to the Commission’s own notification. “The NMC itself has put the 2023 regulations on hold. We have the 2023 gazette notification saying the 2002 Regulations are reinstated. What are they even talking about? On one hand, they say they have reinstated the 2002 Regulations, and on the other, they keep rejecting patients’ appeals.”

Saha sought to represent Arka before the state council. “I tried to represent Arka before the Karnataka Medical Council because we were convinced it was a botched investigation, but I was refused,” he said.

Arka’s case is far from the only one, he said. “I have at least 20 cases like this where the NMC has rejected patients’ appeals. We will very soon file a PIL in the Supreme Court.”

A Door That Opens Only One Way

The effect is an appeals system that works for one side. A doctor penalised by a State Medical Council can appeal to the EMRB and then to the Commission. A family that loses a loved one, and then loses before the same council, has no route of appeal within the National Medical Commission. What remains are the courts and consumer commissions, where cases can run for years. Arka has also approached the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission in Hooghly.

State medical councils are made up largely of doctors. Families usually argue their cases using the hospital's own records, often without an independent expert. A right of appeal to a national regulator was meant to be a safeguard against that imbalance. Arka travelled from Kolkata to Bengaluru for hearing after hearing over four years, only for the KMC to dismiss his complaints. When he appealed, the NMC told him it could not even entertain his appeals.

Also Read:  Arnab's Family Gears Up For Protracted Legal Battle, Alleges Medical Negligence

Questions the NMC Must Answer

Arka’s case raises questions that go to the heart of how the National Medical Commission functions.

If the 2002 Regulations are in force, as the Commission’s own notification states and as it told the Supreme Court, on what legal basis are appeals by patients under Regulation 8.8 being returned? And who within the EMRB decided that a man who lost his brother had no right to be heard?

The Probe has sent a detailed questionnaire to the National Medical Commission seeking its response on these issues. This story will be updated as and when a response is received.