Supreme Court Seeks Centre’s Reply on PIL Over 20-Year Delay in Medical Negligence Rules

The petitioner argues that despite two decades having passed, the Government has not implemented the Court’s directions, leaving families of victims of gross medical negligence without meaningful recourse under criminal law.

The Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta issued notice, returnable in four weeks.

The 2005 judgment had laid down a temporary mechanism for criminal prosecution of doctors accused of rashness or negligence and mandated the Government of India and State Governments, in consultation with the Medical Council of India (now the National Medical Commission), to frame statutory rules governing such prosecutions. The petitioner points out that the directions in paragraph 52 of the judgment were meant only as an interim arrangement until these rules were framed.

According to the petition filed through AoR Devansh Srivastava an RTI response dated 23 May 2025 from the National Medical Commission confirms that “no such guidelines have been framed” till date, although the matter is stated to be “under process.” The petitioner describes this as a “disheartening and disappointing” state of affairs, underscoring the extreme delays despite the judgment being delivered 20 years ago.

The plea highlights how, in the absence of the mandated rules, the current mechanism of medical inquiry, largely dominated by doctors; often fails to offer impartial and unbiased assessments. It relies on findings of the 73rd Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare, which in 2013 observed that medical professionals examining negligence complaints are “very lenient towards their colleagues” and that “none of them is willing to testify another doctor as negligent.” The Committee had recommended that medical negligence cases be examined by multi-disciplinary committees including patient representatives and social activists. The petition notes that even these recommendations have not been implemented.

It also points out that the Supreme Court’s interim directions requiring a credible medical opinion from another competent doctor before filing a private criminal complaint have become practically unworkable, as doctors “generally do not agree to testify against their own fraternity.” This, combined with the difficulty of securing independent medical opinions during police investigations, allegedly results in even the most blatant cases of negligence failing to reach the stage of prosecution.

The petitioner submits that despite the growing number of alleged malpractice incidents; including unnecessary surgeries, fraudulent diagnostic referrals, pharmaceutical inducements, and other unethical practices, criminal accountability remains “almost non-existent.” The plea cites parliamentary questions, media reports and public statements by former Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana, who had warned about the growing corporatisation of healthcare and the erosion of patient trust.

The petition further refers to data cited in a 2024 Business Standard report, which mentions an alarming estimate of 5.2 million annual medical malpractice-related incidents in India across healthcare settings. Yet, prosecutions under criminal law remain negligible.

Arguing that commercialisation, corporate pressures and a lack of statutory safeguards have aggravated the problem over the years, the petitioner contends that victims and their families are left without justice, with even FIRs rarely being registered due to biased inquiry reports. The plea asserts that deaths caused by gross medical negligence would amount to serious criminal offences in any other context, and the absence of a robust prosecution framework has created complete impunity.

Seeking a writ of mandamus, the petitioner urges the Supreme Court to direct the Union Government to immediately frame and notify the statutory rules and executive instructions contemplated in the Jacob Mathew judgment. The petition stresses that every preventable death caused within hospitals due to gross negligence is a grave violation of the right to life and argues that the continued inaction over two decades undermines public faith in both healthcare and the justice system.