Can Doctors Advertise in India? The NMC Rules, and What a Doctor May Do About False Reviews

The short answer

What a doctor may announce is short and specific: starting practice, a change in the type of practice or of address, temporary absence, resumption of practice, succeeding to another practice, and charges. Institutions run by a physician, such as nursing homes and private hospitals, have a separate and narrower rule, regulation 7.12, which limits their advertisements to the name, the type of patients admitted, training and facilities, and fees.

The National Medical Commission published new conduct regulations in August 2023, with detailed social-media rules, and held them in abeyance three weeks later. As of September 2026 the 2002 Regulations remain the operative code.

None of this stops a doctor from answering a false review, asking a platform to take down a false statement of fact, sending a legal notice or going to court. Each is a response to something another person has published, addressed to a platform or to one person, and none of them invites patients.

The rule that actually applies: regulation 6.1 of the 2002 Regulations

The 2002 Regulations were made by the Medical Council of India under Notification No. MCI 211(2) 2001-Regn., dated 11 March 2002, and published in the Gazette of India on 6 April 2002. Chapter 6 lists unethical acts, and regulation 6.1 is headed "Advertising".

Regulation 6.1.1 opens: "Soliciting of patients directly or indirectly, by a physician, by a group of physicians or by institutions or organisations is unethical." It goes on to say that a physician "shall not make use of him/her (or his/her name) as subject of any form or manner of advertising or publicity through any mode either alone or in conjunction with others which is of such a character as to invite attention to him or to his professional position, skill, qualification, achievements, attainments, specialities, appointments, associations, affiliations or honours and/or of such character as would ordinarily result in his self-aggrandisement."

The same regulation forbids a doctor to endorse any drug, appliance or commercial product, and to boast of cases, operations, cures or remedies or permit reports of them to be published. Two phrases do most of the work: "directly or indirectly" means the rule cannot be avoided by having someone else advertise, and "through any mode" means the medium does not matter.

The exceptions are listed. A medical practitioner "is however permitted to make a formal announcement in press" on seven occasions: on starting practice; on change of type of practice; on changing address; on temporary absence from duty; on resumption of another practice; on succeeding to another practice; and a public declaration of charges. The last is worth noticing, because publishing fees is expressly permitted.

Regulation 6.1.2 deals with stationery and signage: "Printing of self-photograph, or any such material of publicity in the letter head or on sign board of the consulting room or any such clinical establishment shall be regarded as acts of self-advertisement and unethical conduct on the part of the physician." Sketches, diagrams and pictures of the human system are allowed. Regulation 7.13 limits a signboard and prescription paper to the doctor's name, recognised qualifications, titles, speciality and registration number with the State Medical Council, and calls an unusually large signboard improper.

What happened to the NMC's 2023 regulations

On 2 August 2023 the National Medical Commission, which replaced the Medical Council of India under the National Medical Commission Act 2019, published the National Medical Commission Registered Medical Practitioner (Professional Conduct) Regulations 2023 in the Gazette of India. They were meant to replace the 2002 code. Regulation 11 restated the permitted announcements for "any media (print, electronic or social)", and Guideline 6 set out conduct on social media, including that doctors should not request or share patients' testimonials or reviews, buy likes or followers, or share images of healed patients or procedure results.

On 23 August 2023 the Commission published the National Medical Commission Registered Medical Practitioners (Professional Conduct) (Amendment) Regulations 2023. Its operative clauses say that the 2023 Regulations "are hereby held in abeyance with immediate effect", that they "shall not be operative and effective till further Gazette Notification on the subject", and that the Commission "adopts and makes effective with immediate effect" the 2002 Regulations as if it had made them under the 2019 Act.

We found no Gazette notification lifting the abeyance. As of September 2026, therefore, the 2023 Regulations are not in force, and the 2002 Regulations are the code the Commission and the State Medical Councils apply. Much of what circulates online as "NMC advertising guidelines" or "NMC social media guidelines" is the 2023 text. It shows the regulator's direction, but it is not the law in force, either as a restriction or as a permission. This guide relies on the Gazette text of both 2023 notifications and the Indian Kanoon copy of the 2002 Regulations.

One further source of confusion: searches for "NMC guidelines" also return the Nursing and Midwifery Council, which regulates nurses and midwives in the United Kingdom. Its standards have nothing to do with doctors in India. In this guide, NMC means the National Medical Commission.

Can doctors advertise on social media?

The 2002 Regulations predate social media and do not mention it by name. They do not need to. Regulation 6.1.1 applies to advertising or publicity "through any mode", so a post, a reel or a paid promotion that invites attention to a doctor's skill, qualifications or achievements is caught in the same way as a newspaper advertisement. On its plain words, soliciting "indirectly" covers content published on a doctor's behalf by an agency, a clinic account or a paid influencer.

Regulation 7.11 is the provision that permits something. A physician "should not contribute to the lay press articles and give interviews regarding diseases and treatments which may have the effect of advertising himself or soliciting practices; but is open to write to the lay press under his own name on matters of public health, hygienic living or to deliver public lectures, give talks on the radio/TV/internet chat for the same purpose". The internet is named. Public-health education is permitted; education that works as advertising for the doctor is not.

Read together, the 2002 text leaves a clinic account a limited range: the announcements regulation 6.1.1 permits, including fees; the identifying details regulation 7.13 allows on a signboard; and general public-health information. On the natural reading of regulation 6.1.1, it excludes boasts of cases, patient testimonials used as endorsement, before-and-after images and claims of superiority. Confidentiality applies online as it does in the consulting room: under regulation 7.14 a doctor "shall not disclose the secrets of a patient that have been learnt in the exercise of his/her profession", subject to narrow exceptions such as a court of law acting under the presiding judge's orders.

The 2023 Guideline 6 would have made this explicit. It required information to be "factual and can be verified", not "misleading or deceptive", and not to "exploit the patient's vulnerability or lack of knowledge". That text is in abeyance, but the last phrase explains why the rule exists: a patient is rarely able to test a claim about a doctor's skill.

Can hospitals advertise in India? Regulation 7.12

Regulation 7.12 reads: "An institution run by a physician for a particular purpose such as a maternity home, nursing home, private hospital, rehabilitation centre or any type of training institution, etc., may be advertised in the lay press, but such advertisements should not contain anything more than the name of the institution, type of patients admitted, type of training and other facilities offered and the fees."

The permission is for an institution run by a physician, the medium named is the lay press, and the content limit is strict. Regulation 6.1.1 separately declares soliciting of patients by "institutions or organisations" unethical, while its bar on publicity applies to a physician acting "either alone or in conjunction with others", so a doctor whose name or image appears in a hospital's promotion is within it.

The Regulations govern registered medical practitioners. A hospital owned by a company is not itself on a medical register, and the 2002 text does not say in terms how far it reaches such a company; the 2023 text, now in abeyance, would have applied the announcement rule expressly to "corporate hospitals". Health advertising is also regulated by other statutes, among them the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act 1954 and the Consumer Protection Act 2019, which this guide does not cover.

What a doctor may lawfully do about false reviews and articles, and why it is not advertising

Advertising, in regulation 6.1.1, means publicity that invites attention to the doctor, or the solicitation of patients. A response to something another person has published is neither, and none of the responses below requires a word about the doctor's own skill.

Reply factually. Google, Practo and JustDial let the holder of a listing respond. A short reply that states the practice's position, corrects a false fact and gives a channel for complaints is not solicitation. Two limits apply. The reply must not disclose anything regulation 7.14 protects, which is why a careful reply neither confirms that the reviewer was treated nor discusses the treatment; and it must not turn into promotion, for example by listing successful cases in answer, which regulation 6.1.1 forbids in any mode.

Ask the platform to remove a false statement of fact. Every intermediary must publish a grievance officer, and under Rule 3(2)(a)(i) of the IT Rules 2021, as amended with effect from 20 February 2026, a complaint that a review is defamatory must be resolved within seven days of receipt. The platform's own rules often do more work than the statute: Practo, for instance, takes feedback only from verified patients, one per appointment, and declines feedback that is biased, paid or promotional.

Send a legal notice through an advocate, and go to court where necessary. A notice identifying the false statements and demanding removal is a private communication to one party, not publicity. Defamation is an offence under section 356 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 (formerly IPC 499 and 500), punishable with simple imprisonment up to two years, or fine, or both, or community service, and under section 222(1) of the BNSS a court takes cognizance of it only on a complaint by the person aggrieved. A civil suit for an injunction is the other route. Under Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015) 5 SCC 1, the "actual knowledge" on which a platform's safe harbour under section 79 of the IT Act depends means a court order or a government notification; a private notice does not create it. Once a court orders removal, Rule 3(1)(d) requires the platform to remove or disable access within three hours.

The law draws the line on the other side as well. In V.P. Sarathi v. S. Kiruthigha (Madras High Court, Crl.R.C. 445/2023, reported as 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 263), a client's Google review called a lawyer "very disrespectful" and the "worst lawyer". The High Court upheld the dismissal of his defamation complaint, observing that the internet is a free platform and an important means of expression, that posting false statements or derogatory remarks would amount to defamation, but that expressing views on services received does not defame the service provider.

A patient's honest account of an unsatisfactory consultation is therefore protected expression. An invented clinical allegation, a review from someone who was never a patient, or an article stating a false fact is a different matter, and every route above is meant for that kind of content only.

What RepuLex will not do for doctors

Some of what is sold to doctors as reputation management is the advertising that regulation 6.1.1 forbids, or something worse. RepuLex does not offer review generation, review-request campaigns, paid ratings, testimonial campaigns, fake reviews or any other form of rating manipulation, for doctors or for anyone else. These are excluded by policy.

The reasons are particular to medicine. Soliciting patients indirectly is still soliciting. The 2023 text, though in abeyance, lists paying for higher ratings and requesting reviews on social media among the things doctors should not do. Practo declines feedback that is biased, paid or promotional. And a manufactured review creates exactly the exposure a doctor is trying to escape: a false statement of fact, published to the public. The separate guide on whether fake reviews are illegal in India covers the wider law.

What RepuLex does is narrower. It is an online reputation management agency, not a law firm. For a doctor facing a false review or article, it documents the content and prepares and lodges the platform complaints; notices under an advocate's signature, suits and court appearances are the acts of its partner law firm, Unified Chambers And Associates. The work is paid, at ₹99,999 per link, payable in advance with a 100% refund for any URL not removed within the agreed timeline. No outcome is guaranteed, every matter is handled under a non-disclosure agreement, and no client is named. The doctors industry page sets out the service and the rate card.

Practo, Google and JustDial: platform routes in one table

The route depends on where the content sits. The table below sets out, for the three platforms where most complaints about Indian doctors appear, the platform's own route and the statutory lane that runs beside it. The platform's own route is usually quicker where the content breaks the platform's rules; the statutory lane is there when it does not act.

Three practical points apply to all of them. Evidence of falsity carries more weight than a general complaint: an appointment record showing no consultation on the date a review describes answers the claim without disclosing anything about a patient. Keep a dated copy of the review and the reviewer's profile before lodging anything, because content can be edited or deleted once a complaint is made. And where a court order is sought, list every URL, because a platform acts on what the order identifies.

For the detail of each process, the doctors industry page covers complaints on Practo, Google and JustDial, and the hospitals and clinics page covers institutional listings and negligence allegations.