A doctor in Kerala has accused members of the National Medical Commission (NMC), the country’s apex medical regulatory authority, of violating regulations that govern the NMC itself by not making their assets and liabilities public.

K.V. Babu, an ophthalmologist who practices near Kannur and has campaigned for years for ethics in medicine, has urged the Union health ministry to compel NMC members to make their assets and liabilities public on the NMC website as required by law.

Babu, in a letter sent on Wednesday to the Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya, has said he had approached the health ministry because there would be a “conflict of interest” if he complained against the NMC members to the NMC itself.

The NMC, a regulatory body for medical education and practice established in 2020 through an Act of Parliament, works through four boards — one each for undergraduate education, postgraduate education, assessment and rating, and ethics and registration.

“One of the reasons the NMC was created was because its predecessor, the Medical Council of India, had come under a cloud of corruption — and the assets and liabilities clause was specifically introduced in the NMC as a safeguard,” Babu told The Telegraph. “It is nearly three years since the establishment of the NMC, but members’ assets and liabilities are not visible on the website as required.”

The minister of state for health Bharati Pravin Pawar, in response to a question in Parliament, had told the Rajya Sabha on July 25 this year that “as per information provided by NMC, the chairperson and members have submitted the prescribed declaration”.

Babu’s letter to the minister notes that Section 6(6) of the NMC Act says the chairperson and every member of the commission “shall make declaration of assets and liabilities at the time of entering office and at the time of demitting office and also declare professional and commercial engagement or involvement …” and “such declaration shall be published on the website of the commission”.

The letter also notes that the NMC’s own regulations notified by the ethics and registration board on August 2 this year specify a code of ethics that requires all registered medical practitioners to function “in accordance with the laws of the land”.

“If their declarations were in the public domain, there would be no issue. But by not publishing assets and liabilities on the website, the NMC members who are themselves registered medical practitioners are also violating the regulations the NMC itself released on August 2,” Babu said.

An email query from this newspaper to the NMC seeking its response to Babu’s complaints has not evoked any response.