Following the judgments from the Kerala High Court and later on from the Supreme Court of India in favour of the drugs control department of Kerala in the SLPs filed by the Kerala branch of the Qualified Private Medical Practitioners Association (QPMPA), the drugs control sleuths of Haryana last week raided two major private hospital pharmacies in Panchkula and seized huge quantum of medicines for not obtaining pharmacy licence from the department.

The officials registered cases against National Skin Hospital and Alchemist Hospital for violation of sections 18a and 18c of the Drugs & Cosmetics Act. Lalith Goyal, the drugs controller of Haryana said the drug store house of one of the hospitals was also working without licence.

This is the first incident of cases against hospital pharmacies for selling drugs without licence in a state outside of Kerala after the Supreme Court dismissed the SLP (C), No 6877/11 on 18.3.2011 filed by the QPMPA, an association of doctors running private hospitals.

With regard to the reported departmental action by Haryana drugs control department, Dr Kishore Kumar, the secretary of the QPMPA said the drug control officials have no right to raid the pharmacies of hospitals because it is the right to a doctor to keep drugs in his place of work. According to him the doctors’ community is exempted from drug licence under section 5 of Schedule K of the D&C Act, and it is a constitutional right enjoyed by them for the last 70 years. He said the drug authorities have misinterpreted Section 5 A in Schedule K to impose drug licence on all hospital pharmacies and thereby to bring the hospitals under their control.

After losing the case in the supreme court, and before that 21 years of fight in the high court of Kerala, the QPMPA informed the President of India Pratibha Patil and the Chief Justice of India that due to the ignorance of the bureaucracy one clause in item 5 of Schedule K in the D&C Act 1940 and Rules 1945 is misinterpreted and it needs amendment. Following it, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) invited the QPMPA office-bearers for a detailed discussion and interpretation of the clause in item 5 of the Schedule K of the Drugs & Cosmetics Act (D&C Act).

The Kerala High Court in its order of March 25, 2010 had mandated all pharmacies attached to private hospitals in Kerala, either for dispensing or for stocking drugs, to obtain licences from the drugs control department. Against this verdict, the QPMPA filed a review petition in the high court which was dismissed later. After that, the doctors association approached the Supreme Court which also did not give them a relief.

In Kerala, the drug control officials went one step ahead in enforcing the Act properly by strictly insisting the wholesalers not to supply medicines to the hospital pharmacies which have no licences. Ten wholesale dealers’ licences were cancelled by the department for not following the orders of the department.

But the doctors’ body got a severe setback from the high court while dismissing their petition. The Court ordered the Association to make a payment of Rs..10,000 as legal cost to the Kerala Legal Services Authority.