Supreme Court Directs States to Declare Cancer as a Notifiable Disease

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Key takeaways

The Supreme Court directed 19 remaining States and UTs to declare cancer a notifiable disease, adding to the 17 States that already have.
A PIL highlighted that the ICMR's National Cancer Registry Programme currently covers only 10% of India's overall population and just 1% of rural areas.
Legal notification under laws like the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 makes it mandatory for public and private healthcare facilities to report all diagnosed cases.
Frameworks like the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) under the NCDC help track such mandated public health threats across states.

The Supreme Court has directed 19 States and Union Territories to consider declaring cancer a notifiable disease.
Currently, 17 out of India's 36 States and UTs have already notified cancer following suggestions from a Parliamentary Standing Committee.
This direction came after a PIL revealed that the ICMR's National Cancer Registry Programme covers only about 10% of India's population, with rural coverage as low as 1%.
Making cancer a notifiable disease mandates reporting of all diagnosed cases, which helps governments maintain systematic records, improve surveillance, and plan effective treatments early.

A notifiable disease is any medical condition that healthcare providers are legally required to report to public health authorities under laws such as the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897.
The primary framework for tracking these health risks in India is the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP), which is managed by the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).
Once authorities notify a disease, every public and private doctor, hospital, and clinic must report suspected, probable, and confirmed cases to official channels.
Examples of widely notified conditions in various states include Tuberculosis, Dengue, Malaria, Cholera, Hepatitis, Measles, Leptospirosis, and Polio, with Covid-19 notified during the pandemic.
Recent additions to this framework include snakebite in 2024 and human rabies in 2025.

India does not have a single uniform national list of notifiable diseases because the legal power to notify a disease sits primarily with state and UT governments.
At the global level, member countries must follow the International Health Regulations (2005) under the WHO, which legally require informing WHO about public health events that could have global consequences.