The Madras High Court has stayed till January 6, 2012 the second phase of mandatory implementation of barcode for the exporters in the country.  Next hearing on the issue will come up on January 6.  

Delivering its order on December 19 in reply to a petition filed jointly by CIPI and IDMA, the court ordered the Union commerce ministry to maintain status quo on the issue of implementation of barcoding for the pharma exporters in the country.
 
CIPI general secretary B Sethuraman said that the court order effectively means that the exporters do not have to implement barcoding on secondary level packaging at least till January 6 as the court has asked to maintain the status quo.  

The Union commerce ministry has already implemented the first phase of barcoding on pharma exporters under which the trace and track technology has been made compulsory for tertiary level packaging from October 1 this year.  The ministry was bracing up to implement the second phase from January 1, 2012 under which barcoding  on secondary level packaging was to become mandatory.  And the new technology was to be made mandatory on primary level packaging from July 1, 2012.

The court order will prove to be a big relief to thousands of pharma exporters in the country as the industry was worried about the introduction of barcoding on secondary level packaging and primary level packaging as that will have an extremely adverse effect on the exporters, especially the small and medium companies. The industry was not that much annoyed with the introduction of barcoding for tertiary level packaging, exporters said.

Ever since the union commerce ministry issued a notification on January 10, 2011 rolling out its plans to implement barcoding for pharma exports on the pretext of checking exports of spurious drugs from the country, the industry has been on warpath against the commerce ministry's decision. In fact, the industry has been running from pillar to post to convince the commerce ministry officials to see reason as they argued that the implementation of barcoding on secondary level packaging will entail a string of regulatory, technical as well as cost issues which will harm the pharma exporters in the country.
Burt, the industry's repeated pleas to defer the barcode implementation fell on the deaf ears of the officials of the commerce ministry, forcing the industry to turn to the last resort of moving court.