A private doctor's clinic is not a commercial establishment, the high court has held, taking medical practitioners out of the purview of the

Bombay Shops and Establishments Act.

A division bench of Justices V M Kanade and P D Kode has struck down a 1977 amendment that included the medical practitioners' establishments. The constitutional validity of the section, 2 (7), was challenged by an Andheri-based gynaecologist, Dr Shubhada Motwani, prosecuted for not registering her clinic. The punishment comprised a fine, calculated for each day of non-registration. She moved court.

Her lawyer, S C Naidu, argued that a medical practitioner's clinic cannot fall within the definition of commercial establishment as a doctor provides service to patients, an activity that cannot be termed commercial.

2) SC in case of Dr Devendra Surti vs State of Gujarat held that the private dispensary of a doctor is not a commercial establishment, will apply.

3) you dont have to pay commercial property tax

4) you dont have to pay commercial electricity meter

1. Chamber meant for the medical profession is considered as commercial space and hence you require Enlistment Certificate to be issued from local Municipality.

In such Enlistment Certificate you require to renew the same every year.

For this commercial property tax is to be paid and commercial meter is to be installed.

City doctors with small dispensaries or clinics in residential flats need not rush to the BMC for permission. Nine years after a city-based senior medical practitioner was targeted by the BMC for running a dispensary from her residential flat, the Bombay high court on Tuesday upheld a trial court order that no permission was necessary if the clinic was less that 30 square metres or 250 sq ft.

The court had observed that a major portion of the flat was being used as a residence where her family lived and a dispensary was not a commercial establishment.

Thus you may not be required to obtain any such permission or covert the domestic electricity supply to commercial.