30 docs from 9 states guilty of taking pharma company junket, no action yet by 6 state medical councils

Thirty doctors who were found guilty of accepting a foreign trip worth Rs 2 crore to Paris and Monaco, funded by a pharma company, come from at least nine states. This was revealed in response to an RTI application. From National Medical Commission’s reminder to state medical councils (SMCs), it is clear that six out of nine councils have not submitted any action taken report to NMC despite the doctors’ names being sent to them last year.

Department of pharmaceuticals forwarded only 27 of 30 names to NMC, with no explanation for dropping three names. Of these 27, 11 were from Maharashtra, three each from Gujarat and Telangana, two each from Punjab, Karnataka, West Bengal and Delhi and one each from Assam and Kerala. SMCs of these states were sent the names of doctors on Dec 15, 2025, to hold an enquiry and “award such punishment as deemed necessary”.

On May 26, the ethics and medical registration board of NMC sent a reminder to the state councils of Assam, Delhi, Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana and West Bengal, pointing out that the action taken report was still awaited and requesting them “to complete the process expeditiously in a time-bound manner”.

Though the name of the company bribing the doctors with foreign trips was revealed as AbbVie, the department of pharmaceuticals and NMC refused to reveal the names of the doctors found guilty by two committees constituted by the department, pointed out Dr Babu KV, the RT I applicant and an ophthalmologist.

According to MCI Act, if a complaint has not been decided by an SMC within six months, NMC has the option of referring it to its own xethics committee. By June 15, it will be six months since SMCs received the complaint and nine months since NMC got the names from the pharmaceutical department in Sept 2025.

In May 2024, department of pharmaceuticals received a complaint, following which the department formed a special committee to audit AbbVie. It concluded that AbbVie had violated the Uniform Code of Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices.