Members of Parliament do it. Supreme Court judges do it. But “officers” in India’s apex medical regulatory authority have “reservations” about it.

The National Medical Commission (NMC), the agency that regulates the country’s medical colleges and practice, has told the Union health ministry that it has reservations about making public its members’ assets and liabilities as required by law.

The NMC, in a December 12 letter to the health ministry, has said the commission's chairperson and members have submitted their declarations of assets and liabilities in prescribed forms that have been kept in the NMC.

The letter has urged the health ministry to "review" the forms, saying there were "reservations” about uploading into the public domain officers’ personal information such as "complete details of land, jewellery, investments in banks and financial institutions, numbers and addresses". The letter does not specify who had reservations.

Kerala-based ophthalmologist K.V. Babu said on Friday that the December 12 letter to the ministry throws light on why the NMC established in 2020 had not yet uploaded the forms on its website.

“The letter suggests that some people within the NMC do not want to disclose information the NMC is obliged to provide under law,” said Babu, who had earlier this year urged the health ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office to get the NMC to make the declarations public.

The NMC regulates medical colleges, undergraduate and postgraduate education and is also responsible for assessment, rating, ethics and registration. The NMC Act requires the chair and members’ declarations of assets and liabilities to be posted on the NMC website.

A query sent by this newspaper to a member of the NMC’s ethics board asking what the NMC was looking for through a “review” by the health ministry and who had reservations about making public the declarations has not evoked a response. An earlier query sent to the NMC by this newspaper in August had also evoked no response.

Babu, who has been campaigning for what he considers public interest causes, said one of the reasons the NMC had been created was because its predecessor, the Medical Council of India, had come under a cloud of corruption. The clause requiring the NMC members to make public their assets and liabilities, Babu said, is widely viewed as a means to enhance transparency.

Candidates contesting for the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha and Vidhan Sabha need to file affidavits declaring movable and immovable assets, among other details, and MPs also need to submit similar details.