Govt Doctor Absent? File RTI for Attendance

Ramesh walks three kilometres to the Primary Health Centre with a fever and a swollen arm. It is Tuesday, a working day, well inside OPD hours. The gate is open, the counter is unmanned, and the only person on duty says, “Doctor sahib has not come today, come back tomorrow.” Ramesh has made this trip four times. The same answer every time. No doctor, no medicine, no referral note.

This is not a one-off. Across India, villagers learn that a government doctor is supposed to be at the PHC every working day but is often absent, on long leave, or posted elsewhere on paper. You do not have to keep guessing. The Right to Information Act, 2005 lets you ask the health department, in writing, for the attendance record, the sanctioned strength, and the action taken on absenteeism. This page shows you how, in plain steps, using only the law and rules that actually exist.

The Supreme Court settled this nearly thirty years ago. In Paschim Banga Khet Mazdoor Samity v. State of West Bengal, (1996) 4 SCC 37 / AIR SC 2426, decided on 6 May 1996, a two-judge bench held that when a government hospital fails to give timely treatment, it violates the right to life under Article 21. The Court said the right to health is part of the right to life, that lack of money is no excuse, and awarded Rs.25,000 compensation to the patient, Hakim Seikh. A doctor who is simply not there is the most basic form of that failure.

Rajasthan went further. The Rajasthan Right to Health Act, 2022, Act No. 7 of 2023, passed on 21 March 2023 and assented on 12 April 2023, made Rajasthan the first state to give a legal right to health by statute. It lists 20 guaranteed rights, including free OPD and IPD care, emergency treatment without prepayment, access to patient records, and grievance redressal, with penalties up to Rs.10,000 for a first breach and Rs.25,000 for a repeat. In law, a missing doctor is not a private inconvenience. It is a breakdown of a duty the state owes you.

The RTI Act defines “information” very widely. Section 2(f) covers records, documents, registers and files held by a public authority. A government hospital is a public authority under Section 2(h), and an institutional attendance register or duty roster is a public record that is generally disclosable.

There is one boundary you must know. In Girish Ramchandra Deshpande v. Central Information Commissioner, (2013) 1 SCC 212, decided on 3 October 2012, the Supreme Court held that the personal service record of a public servant is “personal information” exempt under Section 8(1)(j) unless the applicant shows a larger public interest. In plain words: you cannot fish out a single doctor's confidential service file just because you are curious. But you can ask for the institutional attendance register, the duty roster, sanctioned posts, leave records the office holds as official registers, and action taken on absenteeism, because these are public records of how a public facility is run. If a PIO wrongly refuses by saying “personal information”, reply that you seek the hospital's register, not one officer's confidential file, and that public health is itself a larger public interest.

See our deeper guide on this boundary at Girish Deshpande v. CIC, 2013, the service-record limit.

To ask a useful question, know the correct number. The Indian Public Health Standards, IPHS, 2022, released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare through the NHSRC on 16 April 2022, set staffing norms for PHCs and Health and Wellness Centre PHCs. For a PHC the essential staff includes one Medical Officer, MBBS, for a regular PHC and two for a 24×7 PHC, plus Staff Nurse, ANM at one per 10,000 population, LHV, Pharmacist and Lab Technician. The guidelines recommend a 15 percent leave and training reserve so that legitimate training does not empty the centre, and a norm of 75 OPD patients per Medical Officer per day.

This matters in two ways. If your PHC is sanctioned for one MO and has zero present, that is a vacancy you can name. If the doctor sees 15 patients a day against a norm of 75, the gap is evidence of absenteeism or under-functioning. For the wider hospital side, see RTI for government hospitals and how to find the right PIO for a health authority.

A doctor-attendance RTI goes to the health authority that runs the facility, not to Delhi. For a district PHC or CHC, file to the Chief Medical Officer, CMO, or Chief Medical and Health Officer, of your district. For a state hospital or a policy-level question about sanctioned strength, file to the Director of Health Services, DHS, of your state. If the facility is a central-government hospital, such as an ESIC or CGHS-run centre, file to the PIO of that central authority.

If you are not sure which office holds the register, file two applications, one to the CMO and one to the DHS. The one who does not hold the record will transfer it to the one who does under Section 6(3) within five days.

The fee is not a flat Rs.10 everywhere. Rs.10 is the central government fee under Rule 3 of the Right to Information Rules, 2012, payable by cash, demand draft, banker's cheque, Indian Postal Order, or electronic means, with BPL applicants exempt. Because a CMO or DHS is a state authority, your fee is set by your State's own RTI Rules, which vary. Some states charge Rs.10, some Rs.20, some accept court-fee stamps, and some make it free for BPL holders. Check your state rules before you attach the fee, so the application is not returned as defective. The reply is due in 30 days under Section 7, or 48 hours where life or liberty is involved, which a missing doctor in an emergency arguably is.

Use plain language and ask for specific records, not opinions. Below is a working template. Replace the bracketed parts with your details.

To: The Public Information Officer
Office of the Chief Medical Officer, [district] / Director of Health Services, [state]

Subject: Application under Section 6(1) of the RTI Act, 2005

1. Name: [your name]
2. Address: [your postal address]
3. Information sought, relating to [name of PHC/hospital], [village, block, district], for [start date] to [end date]:

(a) Certified copy of the attendance register / biometric attendance of all Medical Officers and specialists posted at the facility.
(b) Sanctioned strength of Medical Officers, Staff Nurses, ANMs, Pharmacists and Lab Technicians as per IPHS 2022, and the number actually working on each date in the period.
(c) Certified copy of leave records and duty roster showing doctors on authorised leave, training or deputation during the period.
(d) Action taken on absenteeism or unauthorised absence, including show-cause notices, charge sheets, inquiries or penalties, with dates.
(e) Daily outpatient load at the facility, to be compared against the IPHS norm of 75 OPD patients per Medical Officer per day.

4. The information is of larger public interest: public health delivery is a matter of right to life under Article 21, as held in Paschim Banga Khet Mazdoor Samity v. State of West Bengal, (1996) 4 SCC 37.
5. Fee of Rs. [amount] attached by [IPO / court-fee stamp / cash receipt / electronic ref no.].

Place: [city]   Date: [date]   Signature: [yours]

1. Attendance register is the core proof. Ask for a certified copy so it is admissible later.
2. Sanctioned versus working strength exposes a vacancy hidden behind “shortage”.
3. Leave and deputation records separate a genuine training absence from plain absenteeism; the IPHS 15 percent leave reserve means a properly run PHC should still have cover.
4. Action taken forces the department to show it disciplined someone or admit it did nothing.
5. Patient-load data lets you correlate: a doctor marked present but seeing five patients a day against a norm of 75 may mean a dishonest register.

The escalation ladder is fixed by law, so follow it in order.

1. First appeal under Section 19(1), within 30 days of the expiry of the reply period, to the First Appellate Authority, FAA, named in the office's notice board or the Section 4 disclosure. The FAA must decide in 30 days, extendable to 45.
2. Second appeal under Section 19(3) to the Central Information Commission for central authorities, or the State Information Commission for state authorities, within 90 days of the FAA order. The Commission can order disclosure and, for delays, impose a penalty of Rs.250 per day up to Rs.25,000 on the PIO under Section 20.
3. Writ petition in the High Court under Articles 226, or the Supreme Court under 32, if the Commission does not act. The right-to-health frame from Paschim Banga and, in Rajasthan, the Right to Health Act, 2022 give the court a clear basis to order the department to fill the post and explain the absence.

You should not have to file an RTI for the basics. Section 4(1)(b) requires every public authority, including a government hospital, to voluntarily disclose 17 categories of information, including its functions, service-delivery norms, and the monthly performance report. The DoPT Office Memorandum dated 15 April 2013 directs that Citizen's Charters be proactively disclosed with six-monthly performance reports and an annual third-party audit. Before you file, check the hospital or CMO notice board and website. If the sanctioned strength, duty roster and complaint mechanism are not displayed, your RTI can begin by asking why the Section 4 mandatory disclosure has not been made, often more embarrassing for the office than the attendance question itself.

1. No specific dates. “The doctor is always absent” is useless. Give an exact period, for example 1 January to 30 June 2026. The PIO can only certify a register for a period you name.
2. Asking for one named doctor's confidential file. That invites a Section 8(1)(j) refusal under the Girish Deshpande rule. Ask for the institutional register instead.
3. Wrong fee or wrong office. A state fee paid to a state office, or vice versa, gets your application returned. Confirm your State RTI Rules and the correct PIO first.
4. Forgetting the public-interest line. Adding the sentence in paragraph 4 of the template, citing Paschim Banga and Article 21, pushes back against a lazy “personal information” refusal.
5. Skipping the patient-load question. Without it you cannot show that a “present” doctor is in fact not working.

1. Pair the RTI with a grievance complaint. File the same facts on the state's CM grievance portal or MyGov, and to the District Health Society. Two channels carrying one story move the office faster.
2. Use community RTI. Ask three or four neighbours to file the same questions on different days. A cluster about one PHC is hard to ignore and hard to call a personal vendetta.
3. Ask for the IPHS compliance report. The 2022 norms expect facilities to self-assess; asking for that report tells you whether the office even knows it is short-staffed.
4. In Rajasthan, name the Act. Cite the Right to Health Act, 2022 and its 20 guaranteed rights. A statutory right is stronger than a constitutional argument alone.

1. Q: Is the attendance register of a government hospital disclosable? Yes. It is a public record under Section 2(f). What is protected is a specific doctor's confidential service file under Section 8(1)(j), as held in Girish Deshpande (2013) 1 SCC 212, and that protection does not extend to the institutional duty roster.
2. Q: What if the hospital is NABH-accredited but private? The RTI Act applies to “public authorities” under Section 2(h). A purely private NABH-accredited hospital is generally outside RTI unless it is substantially financed by the government. NABH accreditation is a quality standard, not a separate RTI disclosure rule for individual doctors. If the facility takes government scheme patients, for example CGHS or state insurance empanelment, the records of those scheme services may be reachable through the government department that runs the scheme, not the private hospital directly.
3. Q: A specialist post has been vacant for years. Can RTI help? Yes. Ask for the recruitment or deputation status, how many times the post was advertised, how many candidates joined, and the action taken under the state's service rules. Pair this with an RTI for hospital negligence if the vacancy has already caused harm.
4. Q: The PIO says the record is personal information. What do I do? Reply in your first appeal that you sought the hospital register, not a confidential service file, and that public health is a larger public interest under Article 21, as held in Paschim Banga.

1. Finding the right PIO for a health authority
2. RTI for government hospitals
3. RTI for hospital negligence
4. Hospital licence RTI
5. Drug stock RTI for a government hospital
6. Girish Deshpande v. CIC, 2013, the service-record limit

You now have the questions, the template, and the escalation ladder. If you want the full method, from picking the right PIO to drafting a first appeal that wins, read The RTI Playbook, our step-by-step guide to using the Act well.

This work is kept free and independent by readers. If it helped you hold a missing doctor to account, donate to support this work so the next citizen gets the same help.

1. Paschim Banga Khet Mazdoor Samity v. State of West Bengal, (1996) 4 SCC 37 / AIR SC 2426, decided 6 May 1996 — escr-net.org
2. Girish Ramchandra Deshpande v. Central Information Commissioner, (2013) 1 SCC 212 / MANU/SC/0816/2012, decided 3 October 2012 — incometaxindia.gov.in
3. Right to Information Rules, 2012, Rule 3, fee Rs.10 for central authorities — niti.gov.in
4. DoPT Office Memorandum dated 15 April 2013 on Section 4(1)(b) suo motu disclosure and Citizen's Charter — cic.gov.in
5. Indian Public Health Standards, IPHS, 2022, PHC/HWC staffing norms, MoHFW/NHSRC, 16 April 2022 — nhsrcindia.org
6. Rajasthan Right to Health Act, 2022, Act No. 7 of 2023 — prsindia.org
7. Section 2(f), Section 4(1)(b), Section 7, Section 19, RTI Act 2005 — indiankanoon.org/doc/13503/

Last reviewed: 3 July 2026.