This article is for hospital and clinic marketing teams, agency account managers and compliance leads in India who need to know how the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) treats healthcare advertising, and what tends to sink a complaint defence. It does not report a count of upheld cases, because we have not coded one. Instead it explains the clauses that healthcare complaints are decided under, the pattern ASCI itself publishes, and a method for building your own picture from ASCI's public outcome listings.
Two scoping points first. ASCI is a self-regulatory body, not a statutory regulator, so it cannot fine you or strike off a doctor. Its power lies in public naming, requests to withdraw or modify, and referral of serious cases to government regulators. And ASCI does not replace the National Medical Commission. A doctor's advertisement can be perfectly acceptable to ASCI and still breach the NMC's rules. We cover that second layer in our piece on what Indian doctors are actually allowed to say online.
How a healthcare complaint is decided
The ASCI Code has four chapters. Healthcare complaints mostly land under two.
Chapter I: truthful and honest representation. Claims must be truthful and substantiable, and must not mislead by implication, omission or exaggeration. The advertiser must produce substantiation when ASCI asks. Research-based claims must cite their source and date. Clause 5 adds that advertising aimed at people concerned about weakness, perceived inadequacy, obesity, illness, impotence, infertility or baldness needs "special care and restraint", and that claims must not go beyond prudent, generally accepted medical practice or the product's actual efficacy.
Chapter III: against harmful products, services or situations. Advertisements must comply with the law, and ads for banned or restricted products cannot be disguised as ads for something else. This is the chapter used when a claim would breach another statute, for instance the Drugs and Magic Remedies Act.
Chapters II (offensive content) and IV (fair competition, including comparative claims) turn up less often in healthcare but do appear, usually for crude fear appeals or "better than the hospital down the road" comparisons.
The complaint outcomes page shows how decisions are recorded. Complaints can come from the general public, industry, government bodies and consumer organisations, and ASCI can act on its own through monitoring. Each listing records an outcome of upheld, not upheld, or resolved by the secretariat without a hearing, and cites the chapter or guideline breached.
The pattern ASCI publishes
ASCI's 2024-25 annual complaints report, as summarised by South First, gives the clearest recent picture. It says ASCI investigated 370 healthcare advertisements and found 56% of them misleading because they lacked honest representation. The same report says 233 health advertisements were referred to the Ministry of Ayush for suspected breaches of the Drugs and Magic Remedies Act, and that 11 healthcare influencer violations involved undisclosed paid partnerships.
Read those numbers for their direction, not their precision. They are an aggregate across advertisers, drawn from a report we have read through a news summary. But they point to three recurring failure types that match what the Code asks for.
- Claims without substantiation. The advertiser cannot produce evidence for an efficacy, speed or superiority claim.
- Cure and prevention claims for serious conditions. These go to the regulator rather than staying inside the self-regulatory process.
- Undisclosed commercial relationships. An influencer or doctor promotes a service without a clear "ad" or "paid partnership" label.
Guidelines that matter beyond the Code
ASCI also publishes subject guidelines on its guidelines page. Four are directly useful to healthcare marketers.
Awards and rankings. The awards and rankings guideline has a section on healthcare enterprises, hospitals and treatments. For a complaint about a healthcare award or ranking claim, the advertiser must provide clearly specified evaluation parameters and the scores obtained by leading healthcare providers. The parameters should cover aspects such as infrastructure and the number and profile of doctors. Where several parameters are used, the weightings must be stated. Where doctor, patient or public perception is part of the evaluation, the survey should be collected by an independent reputable agency, and the questionnaire and data collection records should be available for ASCI to review. A "Best Hospital in the City" badge bought from a magazine with no method behind it is a weak position.
Health and financial influencers. Addendum II, dated 6 March 2025, requires influencers posting about health and nutrition to hold relevant qualifications, such as a medical degree, to disclose them prominently, and to prove them if ASCI asks. Health claims are defined to include any prevention, treatment, cure or remedy for medical conditions.
Celebrities. The celebrity guideline counts doctors as celebrities if they are paid Rs 40 lakh or more a year for appearances in advertising or have 500,000 or more followers on a single handle, and says celebrities may not appear in ads for products prohibited under the Drugs and Magic Remedies Act. For the largest creator-doctors this brings extra duties of due diligence.
Disclosure of material connections. Across the influencer guidelines the principle is that a viewer must be able to tell, without effort, that a post is promotional.
Where ASCI and the NMC meet
For a hospital, a single campaign can be read by three audiences: the public, ASCI and the medical regulator. They do not apply the same test, and it helps to see where they point the same way.
On superlatives, ASCI asks for substantiation and, for rankings, a transparent method. The NMC's notice of 6 October 2026 goes further for doctors and hospitals: paragraph 8.1(ix) bars "best", "leading", "top" and similar claims unless they are objectively verifiable through a transparent, independently ascertainable method. If your award evidence would satisfy ASCI's awards guideline, it is also the right file to hold for the NMC.
On influencers, ASCI requires disclosure and qualifications. The NMC adds that doctors may not use or permit a celebrity, influencer, patient or third party to promote services through prohibited testimonials, and may not use an intermediary to do indirectly what they could not do directly. A brief that satisfies ASCI is a floor, not a ceiling, for doctor-fronted content.
On testimonials, ASCI cares about whether they are genuine and substantiated. The NMC notice is stricter: an individual doctor may not request or share patient testimonials for promotion on social media. Our summary of what the 2026 notice changes sets out the full list, and the glossary entry on medical advertising regulations gives short definitions for training your team.
The practical rule is to write to the strictest of the three tests, then check the exceptions. A claim that would be upheld against you at ASCI is rarely safe at the NMC, and the reverse is not true: passing ASCI does not clear you with a State Medical Council.
