Gujarat Food and Drug Administration (FDCA) has canceled licenses of two Ahmedabad based wholesalers SR Enterprises and Shraddha Healthcare for marketing spurious drugs as a part of huge inter-state drug racket.
This is following High Court of Gujarat also having rejected the bail plea of the accused. The police investigation report is also however awaited in the matter. At the time of seizure on December 20, 2016 FIRs were filed against these two wholesalers as a part of the crackdown led by Commissioner FDCA, Dr H G Koshia.
The racket had spread its tentacles across Delhi, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra which got detected when the state regulators seized antibiotics worth over Rs.51 lakh in Ahmedabad alone.
Dr Koshia explained, “A racket of this reach and quantum has been detected for the first time in Gujarat and Vadodara based drug testing lab has confirmed that antibiotics were grossly spurious with no active ingredients.” The state regulator is also in constant touch with drug controllers of other states to follow vital leads in the case.
Gujarat FDCA officials laid a trap and detected 8 products giving negative results through hand held near infra-red machine and Raman spectroscopy machine based on a tip-off that these drugs have been supplied in a clandestine manner. The seized products claimed to be antibiotics like cefixime, azithromycin and ofloxacin were priced at over Rs.200 for each strip of 10 tablets.
Based on the investigations from respective state drug controllers where the menace of spurious drugs have spread, the clandestine activity involved supplying these products through a Delhi based trader which used to raise invoice from a drug wholesaler operating from elsewhere.
The Drug Controller of Delhi has however explained the Gujarat FDCA that there exists no pharma stockist by the name Shakti Traders which has been detected as a firm supplying spurious drugs, as a part of the spurious drug racket.