Fortis Hospital Shalimar Bagh: Boy Waits 9 Years, NMC Asked to Reply

The Delhi High Court has run out of patience with India’s medical regulator. On 30 October, Justice Neena Bansal Krishna refused the National Medical Commission’s plea for six more weeks and gave it two, to report on whether two doctors at Fortis Hospital Shalimar Bagh are qualified to practise as specialists. If the report does not come, the court said, “the concerned Officers shall appear in person”. The case is that of Devarsh Jain, a boy born at the hospital in August 2017 who suffered brain damage in his first weeks of life. Today he cannot speak or recognise his parents. The Probe has followed his family’s fight since June 2025.

Also Read:Fortis Hospital Shalimar Bagh: Two Doctors’ Credentials Under Scrutiny by DMC

The order came on a contempt petition filed against the NMC’s Secretary, Dr Raghav Langer, its Chairperson, Dr Abhijat Chandrakant Sheth, and Delhi’s Directorate General of Health Services. The petition says the regulator ignored a court direction of 29 May 2026, which told the NMC Secretary and the DGHS to jointly inquire into the doctors’ qualifications and report within eight weeks. That deadline passed on 24 July. No report was filed. No extension was sought. When the matter came up on 7 September, the court ran out of time to hear it and pushed it to April 2027.

The family filed a fresh contempt case on 28 October. Two days later the court pulled the case back, set a hearing for 16 December, and put the regulators on a two-week clock. When The Probe first reported on Fortis Hospital Shalimar Bagh in June 2025, the family’s complaint sat with the Delhi Medical Council. Before the month was out, the council itself had been dissolved. Seventeen months on, the country’s top medical regulators are named in contempt proceedings before the High Court.

T