Though the officers under the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) busted the sale of banned drugs in Delhi and other places now, the Health Ministry has stated that no instances of selling banned drugs in the open market came to its notice in the recent past.

“Till date 90 drugs have been banned by the Central Government in exercise of powers vested under Section 26A of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, which includes certain Fixed Dose Combination (FDC) drugs. The Government has not received any report regarding continued marketing of the banned drugs including FDCs,” according to the official sources.

“Certain such cases had come to the notice of the Government in the past. Necessary instructions have been issued by the DCGI to the State Drug Controllers to withdraw approvals granted to market such FDCs. In some cases, based on instructions received from the DCGI, the State Drug Controllers have cancelled the approvals granted,” sources clarified.

There is no proposal under consideration to ban ketoprofen for animal use as Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has not received any such report establishing that use of ketoprofen in animals is having adverse effect on vulture population, it was also specified.

In November last year, a series of raids were conducted by the office of DCGI on pharmacy outlets in Delhi and Rajasthan for selling two of the banned drugs  namely gatifloxacin and tegaserod. The officials stated to have seized huge stocks of the brands of these companies namely Lupin, Dr Reddy's, Sun Pharma, Cipla, Hetero Drugs, Torrent Pharma, Aristo Pharma, Intas and others. The inspectors of the Central Drug Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) have conducted 135 raids in over 90 pharmacies in Delhi and Rajasthan. DCGI had banned gatifloxacin, an antibiotic and tegaserod, a chronic constipation drug for their adverse effects on last March 16, 2011.