Karnataka High Court has adjourned the third hearing of the public interest litigation filed challenging Drug Policy 2002 and announcement of the new DPCO for October 22, 2002. It may be recalled that a public interest litigation was filed by Lt. Col. (Retd.) K S Gopinath and Dr. Bhaskar during the end of May 2002 citing that the new pharmaceutical policy had failed to bring various essential drugs into the ambit of price control.

The central government challenged to take the issue to the Supreme Court if the Karnataka High Court was indecisive on its action on the PIL filed.

In the second hearing, which took place in the first week of September 2002, the central government did not indicate anything about the life saving drugs and their price control. The Karnataka High Court was not satisfied and restrained the Central government from going ahead with the new DPCO. The Karnataka High Court wanted the drugs to be under the price control while the Union Ministry defended the issue by stating that the WTO and the Doha meet were the causes preventing it from doing so.

The writ petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India stated that if the Pharmaceutical Policy 2002 is allowed to be implemented, it would take the life saving and essential drugs out of the ambit of the Drugs Price Control Order which is detrimental to the interests of the poor in the country so also in the violation of rights of the general public under Article 21 of the Constitution.

The petition further stated that the policy framed is arbitrary, unreasonable and fails to take into account relevant factors and proceeds on the basis of irrelevant consideration and as such is violation of Article 14 of the Constitution.

The petitioner added that if essential drugs are brought outside the first schedule of the DPCO 1995, the common man will be adversely affected in as much as the cost of each drug and will not be with their reach to procure the same to save their lives. It has been suggested by the petitioner that the approach to price control based on selectivity should be applied across the board to all the drugs used in the country irrespective of their therapeutic use.

Sources from the pharmaceutical industry in Bangalore said that the stay on the new pharma policy was the best thing to have happened. They were of the view that the Karnataka High Court should speed up the issue and not postpone it any further.