The Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has moved an appeal to the designated special court on spurious drugs to prosecute the accused persons in inter-state spurious drug racket.
The prime accused of the racket were booked for contravention of the provisions of Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 under Section 18 c and Section 27 for illegally stocking and supplying spurious drugs without a license and proper bill. Spurious products worth Rs. 11 lakh were also seized from the Vapi-based wholesaler.
Based on the tip-off, Gujarat Food and Drug Control Administration (FDCA) and Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) jointly detected and nabbed the accused and seized counterfeit drugs of calcium tablets bearing brand name Calcimax Forte tablets. This is the latest in the series of Gujarat FDCA crackdown on firms circulating spurious drugs under fictitious names
Certain drug exporting firms have come under the scanner of drug regulators based on intelligence reports. Besides this, findings by other state drug controllers have also indicated there is a growing network of unscrupulous drug dealers which have clandestinely spread to states like Maharashtra, Delhi, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.
Maharashtra FDA officials have termed spurious drugs as a major challenge and are in the process of devising an action plan to plug the loopholes in the retail supply chain. Maharashtra FDA is also investigating the matter further to their correspondence with Gujarat FDCA on the inter-state spurious drug racket.
Based on the preliminary investigations from respective state drug controllers where the menace of spurious drugs has spread, the clandestine activity also involved supplying the product through a Delhi based trader.
Based on the Gujarat FDCA findings in the past, 50 drug retail stores in Ahmedabad were also supplied spurious drugs by the drug dealer and two people were arrested by the FDA and police in this connection. Practicing doctors were also found prescribing spurious antibiotics kept in these retail drug stores.