The Allahabad High Court has stayed the order of the CBI Court Ghaziabad against Eli Lilly and Company (India) on charges of alleged supply of adulterated insulin thereby causing paralysis to the complainant.

The reprieve has come after the company submitted a test report issued by Department of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) claiming that the disease, right sided hemiparesis cannot be attributed to the drug in question.

The court has asked the petitioner to issue notices to the complainant to file a counter affidavit within three weeks and has stayed all proceedings against the company till the next hearing. The stay order has come on the application filed by the company for quashing the proceedings under Section 275, 420 IPC and Section 27 of Drugs and Cosmetics Act 1940 pending in the court of Special Judicial Magistrate (CBI) Ghaziabad.

Section 27 of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act deals with penalty for manufacture, sale etc. of any drug deemed to be adulterated or spurious or not of standard quality which when used is likely to cause death or grievous hurt.

Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) deals with cognisable, non-bailable cases of cheating and dishonesty and Section 275 of the IPC covers cognisable, non-bailable cases where anyone found selling adulterated drugs is punished with a term of life imprisonment with or without fine.

The legal firm which represented the company informed that the Allahabad High Court found merit in their contention that no offence is even prima facie made out against the applicants from the contents of FIR, the experts opinions and the material collected by CBI and was therefore pleased to stay the criminal proceedings before the Magistrate. "We are very glad that the High Court has stayed the order based on the report from AIIMS High Power Committee, which has clearly absolved the company," they said.

The legal firm further pointed out that the sample seized from the stockists of the company was well within the recommended efficacy range of the Indian Pharmacopoeia. "It is quite possible that the complainant did not keep the drugs under prescribed temperature limits as a result of which potency level of the complainants sample reduced. It should also be borne in mind that the said vials were tested 15 months from the date of seizure and we are unsure of its storage conditions," they said.

According to the legal firm, the vial in reference was from a batch of insulins produced in 2002, at Lilly's Fergersheim plant. A total of 90000 vials were produced in this batch, out of which 23,500 were imported to India, 20,823 were sold across India and about 120 vials were in sold in Agra city and 60 to the chemist, from where the patient purchased.

In response to the complaint, Lilly re-tested the in house samples of the same batch and also tested several vials randomly picked up from the market. All the tests revealed that the product conformed to all quality standards and are fit for use by the patient. There was no complaint received from anywhere in India or from any other country on this batch, as per our computerised complaint monitoring system," they said.

The CBI Court's directions had come in response to a complaint filed by the family members of a diabetic patient, D V Gupta of Agra, who soon after being injected with Eli Lilly's Huminsulin (100iu) in June 2002 suffered from paralysis.