NEW DELHI — In a staggering example of bureaucratic stonewalling and judicial delays, a Right to Information (RTI) application filed over a decade ago remains unfulfilled despite two landmark favourable orders and a succession of 12 different judges hearing the matter. The case involves a relentless legal battle waged by the regulatory medical council using public funds to actively suppress information regarding internal corruption complaints and the suspension status of a high-profile former medical official. The decades-long delay has sparked serious concern among transparency advocates, who warn that institutional obstruction threatens the basic utility of India’s transparency laws.
The Genesis of the Transparency Battle
The legal battle began in October 2015 when the organisation People for Better Treatment (PBT), led by patient rights activist Dr Kunal Saha, submitted a comprehensive RTI application to the Medical Council of India (MCI). The petition explicitly sought all files, documents, and official minutes concerning an October 2010 corruption complaint filed against Dr Ketan Desai, the former president of the MCI. Additionally, the applicant requested transparency regarding the exact operational status of Dr Desai’s medical registration suspension.
When the regulatory medical body failed to produce the statutory documents within the mandated time frame, Dr Saha filed an appeal with the apex transparency watchdog, the Central Information Commission (CIC). In January 2017, the CIC issued a definitive ruling in favour of the applicant. The commission explicitly ordered the MCI to furnish the status of the complaint, supply the minutes and agendas of its ethics committee meetings, and permit a thorough inspection of the relevant files within three weeks. Furthermore, the MCI agreed to disclose the vast sums of public money spent annually on hiring individual external lawyers since 2010.
A Carousel of 12 Judges and Institutional Obstruction
Rather than complying with the statutory directives of the transparency watchdog, the MCI chose to weaponise the judicial system. The council immediately moved the Delhi High Court to secure an interim stay on the operation of the CIC’s order. This legal manoeuvre successfully froze the release of the administrative records, initiating an agonizingly slow cycle of court hearings.
Over the next nine years, the case file circulated through the Delhi High Court, coming up for substantive hearings before a succession of 12 different High Court justices. Throughout this prolonged timeline, the regulatory body undergoes its own structural transformation. In September 2020, the central government dissolved the controversial MCI, replacing it with the newly formed National Medical Commission (NMC).
Despite the change in leadership and corporate identity, the newly established NMC chose to continue the adversarial legal strategy of its predecessor. Rather than handing over the historical records to ensure public accountability, the NMC’s legal counsel vigorously opposed the release of the documents. In a highly controversial legal argument presented before the court, the NMC asserted that because the original entity (the MCI) had ceased to exist, the original RTI applicant would be required to file a brand-new application from scratch—a move critics slammed as a bad-faith effort to reset the legal clock.
The Latest Judicial Directive
The continuous delay met a significant roadblock when the Delhi High Court finally ordered the successor body, the National Medical Commission, to comply with the original 2017 CIC transparency ruling. The court firmly rejected the regulatory body’s attempts to evade accountability, directing it to supply the information regarding Dr Desai’s registration status and the complaints filed against him.
However, despite this second major legal victory for the applicant, bureaucratic hurdles mean the documents have still not changed hands. Transparency experts point out that the institutional resistance displayed by the medical council sets a dangerous precedent for transparency in governance. By using vast amounts of public funds to pay senior advocates to fight transparency orders in court, government departments can outlast citizens, turning a statutory right into a battle of attrition. With the next high court hearing scheduled for May 19, the case stands as a stark reminder of how institutional delays can weaken the right to know.
