The Supreme Court has disposed of the controversial contempt of court petition filed against the appointment of Dr GN Singh as Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) in February this year. While disposing of the case, the apex court also directed the Madras High Court to decide the DCGI case pending there preferably in two months' time.

A case has been pending in the Madras High Court against the appointment of DCGI as per the new Recruitment Rule (RR) framed by the union health ministry in June last year for the appointment of DCGI.

The Supreme Court also ordered that the stay on the appointment of DCGI as per the new RR will also be continued.

With this Supreme Court direction, the action on this issue will now be moved from Supreme Court to Madras High Court. The issue is likely to come up for hearing in the Madras High Court in a week's time.

Both the contempt petition in the Supreme Court and the case in Madras High Court, challenging the health ministry's new Recruitment Rule, were filed by Dilip Kumar, secretary of the Tamil Nadu branch Indian Pharmacy Graduates Association (IPGA).

The bone of contention between the government and the petitioner is the heath ministry's new recruitment rule. The IPGA secretary had challenged the health ministry's RR on the plea that the ministry has tailor-made the new rules to fit its nominee in the post of DCGI. As per the D&C Act, the required qualification for the post of DCGI is a degree in pharmacy, pharmaceutical chemistry or degree in medicine with specialization in clinical pharmacology or microbiology from a University established in India by law.

But the petitioner argues that the qualifications framed in the new RR is not in consonance with Rule 49(A) and 50(A) of the D&C Act. The qualification clause in the D&C Rules does not demand a post graduate in Chemistry for DCGI post. But, the RR seeks applications from those who are possessing post graduate degree in chemistry, biochemistry and pharmaceutical chemistry in addition to the prescribed qualifications in the Act. The experience prescribed in advertisement is also in violation of the experience norms stipulated in the drugs and cosmetics rules.