The Hindu : SC concern over non-inclusion of essential drugs

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Saturday, Aug 02, 2003

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SC concern over non-inclusion of essential drugs

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI AUG. 1. The Supreme Court today expressed concern over non-inclusion of several life-saving drugs in the essential medicines list and granted four weeks to the Centre to explain its stand in this regard.

It was brought to the notice of the Bench, comprising the Chief Justice, V.N. Khare, and Justice S.B. Sinha, that important drugs for treatment of typhoid, hepatitis A and cardiac diseases had not been included in the essential medicines list submitted by the Centre on July 11.

The Bench told the Additional Solicitor-General, Raju Ramachandran, that it would not permit to put in operation the Drug Price Control Order (DPCO) under the Pharmaceutical Policy 2002 till the Centre came out with a definite stand.

The ASG submitted that the Centre had included 75 new medicines in the essential drugs list after carrying out a comprehensive review as suggested by the apex court. However, the Bench criticised the Centre for taking different stands at different points of time and objected to linking the issue of inclusion of a medicine to the turnover of a company manufacturing the same.

The Bench said that "if the price goes up and the turnover increases, the medicine will go out of the list. We were given to understand by the Attorney General that apart from the existing medicines, many more would be added to the essential drugs list. If proper steps are not taken by the Government, we will pass a judicial order".

It told the ASG, "India is a welfare state. You should see the welfare of all the people and not that of the rich. Life-saving drugs should be included. We will monitor the case till it is done".

The Bench was hearing an appeal filed by the Centre against a Karnataka High Court order of November 2002 virtually staying the operation of the policy.

The High Court had asked the Centre not to go ahead with the new drug policy unless it ensured that the life-saving drugs did not go out of the DPCO.

The High Court passed the order on a petition from Lt. Col. (retd.) K.S. Gopinath and Dr. B.V. Bhaskar alleging that under the new Pharmaceutical Policy, the life-saving drugs would go out of the DPCO making the drug manufacturers hike the prices at will causing hardship to poor patients.

Appearing for Mr. Gopinath, senior advocate C.A. Sundaram submitted that the drug manufacturers were interested in immediate implementation of the DPCO as it would give them leverage to take the drugs out of DPCO on the basis of their turnover.

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