• Comments
  • 2 Sep 2026
  • 3 mins read

Comments on the draft Maharashtra Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Bill, 2026

The draft Maharashtra Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Bill (‘The Bill’), 2026, is currently under the consideration of a Joint Committee consisting of Members of both Houses of the Maharashtra Legislature. On 3 August 2026, the Joint Committee invited public comments and suggestions for amending the Bill.

The draft bill seeks to replace the Maharashtra Nursing Homes Registration Act, 1949, which currently regulates private clinical establishments in Maharashtra, with a broader regulatory framework. The Bill brings various kinds of clinical establishments under its regulatory purview and ensures transparency, accountability and adherence to minimum standards in the functioning of all private clinical establishments in Maharashtra.

The Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy submitted detailed comments on the draft Bill in response to the invitation for suggestions. Our recommendations are based on an analytical framework that has two priorities: helping the operationalisation of the right to health, and improving regulatory efficacy. 

Based on this analytical framework, Vidhi’s submissions make the following recommendations –

Scope: 

  • The title of the Bill and its provisions should explicitly clarify that the Bill only applies to private clinical establishments. 
  • The Bill should expressly exclude healthcare services delivered outside the physical premises of a clinical establishment.
  • The Bill should expressly exclude services delivered through the use of AI-enabled diagnostic centres and algorithm-based clinical decision-support systems.

Rights: 

  • The current Charter of Patient Rights in the Bill should be expanded to include the full ambit of rights under the National Human Rights Commission Charter. 
  • The current Charter of Patient Rights in the Bill should also include specific rights related to the accessibility of healthcare services for persons with disabilities.

Regulatory functions: 

The Bill should incorporate –

  • a risk-based inspection system for clinical establishments with baseline compliance audits, 
  • graded minimum standards subject to the nature and category of clinical establishments, 
  • considerations in the framing of minimum standards, including

    • aspects like standard treatment guidelines (customised to local conditions), 
    • public health emergency preparedness, 
    • data protection, 
    • accessibility for persons with disabilities as well as transgender persons, and 
  • provisions for price standardisation. 

Regulatory Architecture: 

  • The composition of the regulatory bodies constituted under the Bill should be made more representative. 
  • A separate authority with specialised technical expertise should be constituted to determine minimum standards.
  • Grievance redressal procedures should be improved and appropriate authorities should be appointed for this purpose.
  • The Bill should remove the omnibus criminalisation provision and add clearly defined contraventions that pose an imminent danger to health, safety or life.

Through these recommendations, Vidhi’s submission seeks to strengthen the draft Bill’s legal clarity and implementability and its focus on a rights based approach to regulation. 

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About the Authors
Dhvani Mehta (Co-Founder and Lead, Health)

Dr. Dhvani Mehta {B.L.S. LL.B. (University of Mumbai); BCL, D.Phil (Oxon)} is a Co-Founder at Vidhi and Lead, Health. She has worked specifically on research projects on environmental clearances, the National Green Tribunal, organ transplant laws, end of life care, and pharmaceutical and medical device regulation. She has appeared in the Supreme Court of India in petitions filed by Vidhi on advance medical directives and discrimination against persons affected by leprosy. She has authored chapters on the implementation of environmental judgments and healthcare corruption in India. Dhvani read for a doctoral degree at the University of Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, where she was Chairperson of Oxford Pro Bono Publico and an editor of the Oxford Human Rights Hub blog. Her doctoral thesis explores the idea of an environmental rule of law in India and was cited by the Supreme Court of India.

Anmol Mathur (Senior Resident Fellow )

Anmol is a Senior Resident Fellow in the Health team at Vidhi. Prior to joining Vidhi, Anmol graduated with a law degree from Symbiosis Law School, NOIDA in 2022 and thereafter completed an LL.M. in National and Global Health Law from Georgetown University Law Center in 2025. She has previously worked with the Centre for Health Equity, Law and Policy, ILS Pune, the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, UNAIDS, and the Pan American Health Organization. Her research interests lie at the intersection of health law, human rights, and global health governance, with a focus on strengthening rights-based and equitable health systems. Her key areas of work have included infectious disease, digital health and health security.

Pratyay Panigrahi (Research Fellow, Founders' Office)

Pratyay is a Research Fellow in the Founders’ Office at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, Delhi. He holds an LLM from the London School of Economics and a BA LLB (Hons) from the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata. He is interested in public law, with a special emphasis on civil rights, institutional accountability and comparative constitutional law. Prior to joining Vidhi, he has worked as a full-time Research Assistant to a Senior Advocate, as an Occasional Research Assistant at the London School of Economics and as a Regulatory Analyst at RegGenome.

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