Unauthorized remdesivir: Gujarat government ignored Surat case, says high court

AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat high court on Wednesday castigated the state government for “turning their eyes blind” to the “unauthorized distribution of remdesivir” from Surat’s BJP office. The court said the government on the other hand booked and detained people for possessing one or two injections when citizens were desperately looking for the Covid drug during the second wave.
The case involved Arbaz Garasiya, Makbul Chauhan, Mubin Chauhan, and Mahammad Sahid Samli from Bharuch district, who were booked for having six remdesivir vials without licence. They were arrested in May and granted bail. But before they could come out of jail, the Bharuch district magistrate ordered their detention in June by invoking the Prevention of Blackmarketing and Maintenance of Supplies of Essential Commodities Act.
The court noted that in the nearby district of Surat, thousands of injections were distributed by “high positioned functionaries” in the name of charity without any licence.
The HC found the Bharuch district magistrate’s order to detain the four persons erroneous and quashed it. Justice Paresh Upadhyay said that while the government sought to endorse the distribution of 5,000 injections by a political party, it targeted people for dealing in a couple of injections.
“In the second wave of Covid pandemic — somewhere between March to May, 2021 — the public at large was facing all sorts of difficulties regarding non-availability of beds in hospitals and medicines like remdesivir injections etc,” the court said. “At that time, on the one hand the state authorities were turning their eyes blind qua unauthorized distribution of remdesivir injections, including by high positioned functionaries, in the name of charity.” The court went on to say: “…and at the same time, the police authorities started registering FIRs on their own ... against the persons on road, for allegedly having one/two remdesivir injections with them unauthorizedly.” The court further noted that the detention orders were passed in Bharuch district, “which is adjoining Surat district, where thousands of remdesivir injections were stated to be available for public.”