Last week's Supreme Court's verdict striking down the Bombay High Court order removing seven bulk drugs from DPCO, 1995, has once again proved a point. Judicial interventions are more frequently required to enforce the laws in this industry and to discipline the powerful corporates. Judgement of the SC also proved that the usually weak and half-hearted defence of the government lawyers and inescapable delay in the judicial process can prolong the delivery of justice to the common man but it will not be totally denied. The seven bulk drugs and their formulations, under dispute, have been virtually out of price control since 1995 despite their inclusion in the list of scheduled bulk drugs of the DPCO, 1995 because of the court cases filed in Mumbai and Delhi. NPPA has, thus, been just a mute witness to the violations of ceiling prices it has been issuing during the five-year period. Now with the SC order, drug companies are required to deposit 50 percent of the overcharged amounts, as calculated by NPPA, during the period from 1995 to 2000 with the government. This amount should be in the region of at least Rs 140 crore. NPPA can also work out the overcharged amounts for the period starting from June, 2000 now. Cipla will be, perhaps, the worst hit company once the recovery process starts as the claim of overcharged amounts on its ciprofloxacin, norfloaxacin and salbutamol formulations are quite huge. Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy's, Unichem, Kopran, Nicholas Piramal and Wockhardt are the other leading companies figuring in the NPPA list.
Paying up these amounts should not be that difficult for these cash rich companies considering their high rates of profitability during the five-year period. In fact, during the pendency of the cases in Bombay High Court, some of these petitioner companies had given undertakings to NPPA to deposit the overcharged amounts. What is surprising in this long drawn litigation is how these companies managed to dodge price revision orders of a statutory body like NPPA for more than 7 years just using the shelter of judicial delay. And in the case of ciprofloxacin and norfloxacin, NPPA had not even reduced the bulk drug prices since 1997 although their market prices have been ruling far less than the notified prices. NPPA has been monitoring the market prices of bulk drugs and other inputs during the whole period of litigation as it felt confident that contending companies were fighting a weak case. It is not that petitioner companies are ignorant of the essentiality of drugs like ciprofloxacin, norfloxacin, cloxacillin, etc. and the government's rationale to bring them under price control. Hopefully, the SC order and its direction to Bombay High Court should bring in some discipline in drug price administration in the country in future.