New Delhi, Oct. 21: A global umbrella of medical associations today installed Ketan Desai, a "tainted" Indian doctor who is facing charges of corruption in India, as its president, rejecting appeals from a doctor who had alerted the federation to the charges.

The World Medical Association (WMA), at a general assembly session in Taipei, Taiwan, today named Desai president for 2016-17.

Desai, a former president of the Medical Council of India (MCI), was arrested in 2010 and is facing corruption charges in court.

The CBI had arrested Desai when he was president of the MCI, alleging he had sought a bribe from a private medical college in Punjab for approving the entry of students into the college for the academic year 2010-11. Desai was not immediately available for a response.

"To our knowledge, all charges against him have been dismissed," a spokesperson for the WMA told The Telegraph over the phone.

"We had been informed by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) that all charges have been dismissed - that is all we have to say," he said, declining to take any more questions.

The WMA, whose membership includes the national associations of physicians and individual physicians from various countries, says on its website that its central objective since its inception in 1947 has been to "establish and promote the highest possible standards of ethical behaviour and care by physicians".

Kunal Saha, an Indian American doctor, had written to the WMA earlier this week saying that members of the IMA had misled the world body in favour of Desai by claiming that the corruption charges against Desai had been dropped.

"The IMA made a completely false submission before the WMA that Dr Desai has been cleared from all charges by the Indian authority," Saha had said in his letter to the WMA.

Saha said the chief vigilance officer of the MCI had recommended disciplinary action against the IMA members who had made the false submissions to the WMA. The chief vigilance officer had recommended that the WMA be informed that at least two criminal cases against Desai are still pending before the CBI court.

Saha today said he was "extremely disappointed" by the WMA decision to install Desai as president. "The WMA is going to bring disrepute to itself by doing this," Saha said. "As president of the WMA, Desai is trying to portray that he is respected by the global community," Saha told this newspaper over phone.

In his letter to the WMA, Saha had also cited an October 2010 order from the MCI that had suspended Desai's licence to practice medicine to question his installation as president of WMA.

"A doctor whose licence is suspended has been made the head of an international medical body -- what message does that send to the public?" Saha asked.

Saha has written to the current MCI president Jayshree Mehta, saying it should take "urgent remedial measures" to remove Desai from the post of the WMA president through "appropriate authority".

"The present installation of Desai to the highly coveted post of the WMA president not only goes against the categorical directions by the MCI and the chief vigilance officer, it also undermines the very sanctity of the noble medical profession that would likely have strong demoralising effects on public trust on doctors in India and across the globe," Saha wrote in his letter, saying if the MCI did not act, he would move an "appropriate legal forum".