The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought responses from the Centre and the National Medical Commission on the plea of an organisation of doctors that physicians be exempt from the purview of the Consumer Protection Act.
A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice N.V. Anjaria issued notices to the respondent authorities on the plea of the Association of Healthcare Providers (India), which argued that doctors remaining in the ambit of the Act was “antithetical” to the noble profession as it put the medical fraternity under the “fear of litigation, defensive medicine, inflated costs and weakened communication” with patients.
It was submitted that bringing doctors under the Act would not serve the stated objectives as they were already subject to multiple regulatory and legal mechanisms such as civil courts, high courts and the Supreme Court, besides the NMC. There is no need to further subject doctors to consumer courts, the association said.
The petition contended that the law was enacted to deal with complaints of unfair trade practices and deficiency in services by traders, and not to deal with a specialised field like the medical profession.
The profession was brought under the Act following a direction from a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court in the Indian Medical Association vs V.P. Shantha case, which had ruled that doctors fall under the purview and definition of “services”.