Online Reputation Management for Doctors in India

Medical Reputation Management in India: The Legal Routes for False Reviews

Under the Information Technology Act 2000, Section 79 gives platforms such as Google and Practo a safe harbour for the patient reviews they host, and the harbour is conditional on the due diligence the IT Rules 2021 prescribe. The duty that matters first to a doctor is the grievance officer's: a complaint must be acknowledged within 24 hours and resolved within seven days under Rule 3(2)(a)(i), and a complaint that a review is defamatory runs on that seven-day clock. RepuLex files these complaints directly with the grievance officer, with the evidence of falsity attached, rather than through the report button. What a complaint cannot do is compel removal: since Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015), a platform's obligation to take content down arises from a court order or a government notification, and once an order is served Rule 3(1)(d) gives the platform three hours.

Where the false reviewer can be identified, the partner law firm serves a notice on the reviewer under BNS Section 356 (formerly IPC 499/500), the defamation provision of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023. For a false negligence claim — an allegation that a doctor caused harm through incompetent treatment — the exposure is real: a reviewer who publishes a false account faces civil liability and a criminal complaint carrying simple imprisonment of up to two years, or a fine, or both, or community service. The platform complaint and the notice to the author run together, so that both the host and the author are on record.

The regulatory implications of false online content are particularly acute for medical professionals in India, because a complaint to a State Medical Council or to the National Medical Commission can cite what is online. RepuLex therefore treats every medical defamation matter as requiring not only removal but a documented record — complaints filed, notices sent, platform acknowledgements received, removals confirmed in writing — that the doctor can produce in any later regulatory context to show what was false and how it was answered. That documentation discipline is what separates medical reputation management from a marketing service.

False Allegations Against Doctors Online: Negligence Stories and Fake Complaints

False negligence stories — portal-published articles alleging that a named doctor harmed a patient through negligent treatment — and fake complaints posted to forums and complaint sites are the most damaging content a doctor faces, and among the most actionable, because the medical record can disprove them. A news portal is the publisher of its own article rather than an intermediary, so the safe harbour in Section 79 does not shield it, and liability under BNS Section 356 (formerly IPC 499/500) reaches whoever makes or publishes the imputation, which includes the editor responsible for the story. The editor is identifiable from the portal's masthead or its published contact details, and in RepuLex's experience many editors choose removal or correction once a formally constituted notice sets the false statements against the record.

The notice to the editor is the partner law firm's, served under an advocate's signature. Where the story or the complaint has been copied to YouTube, Facebook, X or a complaint forum, those hosts are intermediaries, and RepuLex files a complaint with each grievance officer, which must be acknowledged within 24 hours and resolved within seven days under Rule 3(2)(a)(i). Neither the notice nor the complaint obliges removal by itself; since Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015), that obligation comes from a court order. The two together typically resolve a matter within 7 to 21 days. Where a portal resists, the partner law firm can file a civil suit and seek an urgent interim injunction, and once the order is served every platform carrying a copy must act within three hours under Rule 3(1)(d).

Where a false story or a fake complaint has been cited to the National Medical Commission or a State Medical Council, in a complaint or in regulatory correspondence, RepuLex sequences the removal work around the council's timetable, so that the doctor's counsel has the documented record in hand when it is needed. A confirmed removal, with the notice and the platform's response on file, shows the council what was false and how promptly it was answered. The council's decision remains its own, and RepuLex makes no claim about the outcome of any regulatory proceeding.

Read nextHow to Remove a News Article from Google: The Legal Route

Practo Reviews for Doctors: What Practo Removes and What the Law Adds

Practo sets its own rules for patient feedback, and they are the first route for any doctor with a fake review. In Practo's words, feedback comes from verified patients, one per appointment, and Practo declines feedback that is biased, paid or promotional. A review with no appointment behind it, one describing a consultation or procedure that did not take place, or one that forms part of a paid or promotional pattern falls outside what Practo says it publishes. The doctor raises it by writing to support@practo.com, identifying the review and attaching what shows it falls outside those rules, typically the clinic's appointment record for the date.

What the law adds is a clock and, at the end of it, compulsion. Practo is an intermediary under the IT Act, and its grievance officer must acknowledge a complaint within 24 hours and resolve it within seven days under Rule 3(2)(a)(i) of the IT Rules 2021; a complaint that a review is defamatory runs on that seven-day clock. The partner law firm's notice, served on Practo and, where identifiable, on the author, sets out each false statement against the record. None of this obliges Practo to remove a review on a private notice: since Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015), that obligation arises from a court order or a government notification, and once an order is served Rule 3(1)(d) gives Practo three hours to act. RepuLex says at the outset which reviews are likely to need that last step.

Some reviews stay whatever the route. A patient's honest account of a long wait, a brusque consultation or a result they are unhappy with is opinion on a service received, and in V.P. Sarathi v. S. Kiruthigha the Madras High Court observed that expressing views on services received does not defame the service provider, while posting false statements or derogatory remarks would amount to defamation. The same sequence — the platform's own policy first, the grievance officer next, a court order last — applies to JustDial listings and Google Business Profile reviews, which RepuLex files in parallel when the same review follows a doctor across all three. Whether a doctor should take a patient to court over a review at all is a separate question, answered in the guide below.

Read nextCan a Doctor Sue a Patient for Defamation in India?·Google Reviews Removal

Physician Reputation Management: Protecting a Medical Career Over the Long Term

The rule that shapes what a doctor may do in public is regulation 6.1.1 of the Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations 2002, under which soliciting patients directly or indirectly is unethical. The National Medical Commission's 2023 professional-conduct regulations were held in abeyance by a notification of 23 August 2023, and as of September 2026 the abeyance stands. Seeking the removal of false content solicits no one: a complaint to a platform or a notice to an author asks for a falsehood to be taken down and says nothing to a prospective patient. A reply to a review stays clear of the rule when it is short and factual, discloses nothing about the patient's treatment, and neither praises the doctor's skill nor invites bookings. What a doctor may advertise, and what a reply may say, is set out in the guide below.

Permanent removal of false content is strategically superior to SEO suppression for medical professionals for a specific legal reason: suppression leaves the defamatory content accessible to anyone who searches past the first page or uses direct URL access, while still appearing in regulatory database searches, archive.org crawls, and legal discovery processes. Only legal removal — with confirmed de-indexing from Google and confirmed deletion from the source platform — provides the clean record that matters when NMC inquiries, hospital privileging reviews, or insurance credentialing processes occur.

RepuLex's monitoring service for medical professionals operates on a continuous basis, alerting the doctor's designated contact to any new content matching name, clinic, or facility search patterns. Early detection — before content achieves high Google ranking — significantly reduces both removal complexity and cost. Content that has been ranking for under 30 days is typically removable faster and with less legal escalation than content that has been indexed for 6 to 12 months. A preventive monitoring posture therefore produces material cost savings over time while providing continuous protection.

For doctors practicing across multiple hospitals or clinics, or doctors with multiple specialty designations that attract different search patterns, RepuLex provides coordinated multi-profile monitoring. The documented legal record maintained across all cases — notices, responses, removals, de-indexation confirmations — constitutes a formal record of the professional's proactive legal response to defamation, which is itself valuable documentation for any future regulatory, privileging, or credentialing context that requires demonstration of professional reputation management due diligence.

Read nextCan Doctors Advertise in India? The NMC Rules

What Reputation Management Costs a Doctor in India

The fee is published per URL and is the same for a doctor as for any other client: ₹99,999 for a single link, ₹2,49,999 for 3 links and ₹7,49,999 for 10 links, covering standard-complexity content such as patient reviews, directory listings, forum complaints and social posts. News media, court-reported matters and legal-database listings are quoted separately from ₹1,00,000 per URL, because they go to editorial and legal desks rather than takedown forms, and the emergency track for a story spreading through patient groups carries a published surcharge of 50%. There is no monthly retainer; court filing fees, where a court order becomes necessary, are listed separately for approval before anything is filed.

Payment is 100% in advance, and any URL not removed within the agreed timeline is refunded in full, including where a platform refuses. Before any payment, RepuLex assesses each URL and states in writing which can be removed, by which route and on what timeline, and which cannot: a genuine patient's honest review, an accurate report of a council or court finding, or any other record the law protects. Nothing is charged for a URL that fails that assessment, and the full terms are on the pricing page.