INIndia · the rules that apply

India has seven sets of rules, no single regulator, and a 1954 law with prison attached.

Australia has one authority and a clear guideline. India has seven overlapping regimes, no plain-language guide, and enforcement split between a medical body, a consumer body, state drug controllers and the courts.

Most Indian healthcare marketing happens in the gap between them. That works until it does not.

WHAT ACTUALLY APPLIES TO YOU7 REGIMES
A 1954 law about "magic remedies"It bans promising a cure for a long list of conditions. It is criminal law, it applies to anyone advertising — not just doctors — and it is the law the Supreme Court used against Patanjali in 2024, suspending fourteen product licences.
The doctors' ethics code — the 2002 oneA newer 2023 code was published and then paused three weeks later. It is still paused. If your legal documents quote the 2023 rules, they quote something that never came into force.
Consumer protection lawEvery claim must be provable. And you can breach it while every individual word is technically true, if the overall impression misleads. This is the one careful writers fail.
Rules for influencers and endorsersThe Supreme Court has confirmed that celebrities and influencers are personally liable for claims they endorse. Using one does not move the risk off you.
Scan and imaging centres — the strictest of allAnything that could be read as offering to reveal the sex of an unborn child is criminal. If you run imaging, this needs a separate, signed-off review of every line.
Plus rules on data privacy, online consultations, and pharmaceutical promotion.

The one rule that ends careers.

No commissions for referrals. In any form, under any description. This has been prohibited for decades, it survived every change to the rules, and it is where a great deal of Indian medical marketing quietly sits.

If money moves per patient delivered rather than for clinical work performed, the arrangement is in a contested category and the marketing is the smallest part of the problem. We will not build anything on that structure.

What is safe: explaining a condition honestly, showing your doctors, publishing what you treat and what you refer elsewhere. Education is not soliciting. Promising to fix someone is.

Check your own paperwork

If your prescription disclaimers, terms or marketing policy cite the "NMC 2023 Regulations", they cite rules that were paused in August 2023 and never revived. It is a one-hour fix and it is the kind of detail a lawyer notices.

Free compliance check for Indian practices.

Every page, every social account, and the paperwork — checked against all seven regimes, with the risky items ranked first.

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Read: PCPNDT section 22