The Mazgaon Metropolitan Magistrate Court has held a Kolkata-based pharma company and its partners guilty under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act for providing substandard medicines to Cama and Albless Hospital in Mumbai. The court sentenced the accused to simple imprisonment, while imposed a fine of Rs 15,000 on each of the convicts.
The court, while passing its order, said the accused’s act was against society and public health, and deserved to be punished. “The accused have illegally manufactured non-standard drugs, which weren’t used for curing diseases. Due to substandard quality, the drugs can’t cure the disease. This is against society at large,” the order read.
The company, CI Laboratories, and its partners Surya Bharech and Narayan Parekh, in addition to the company’s chemist Moloy Dutta and its quality control chemist Bikas Mondol were all involved in the manufacturing of calcium lactate, a 300mg tablet. In 2014, the medicines, when tested, were found to be of ‘not standard quality’. The reports from the central drug laboratory in Kolkata proved that the raw material which was added for manufacturing the tablets was not properly used. Also, the accused did not make the necessary compliance while manufacturing the drug.
However, the defence said the drug needed to be stored in a moisture-free environment, and the absence of the same resulted in a problematic condition. The prosecution, however, was successful in proving that the moisture, as well as non-maintenance of the drug, don’t lower its quality.