Telangana High Court Fines Drug Regulator for ‘Mindless’ Case Against Retired Manager

Overview

• The High Court, which ruled Monday, ordered the CDSCO to pay Rs 50,000 to petitioner A.K. Gupta within four weeks.
• Regulators had named Gupta as Accused No. 1 in a 2012 case after a 2010 lab test found Roxithromycin tablets from a railway hospital were not of standard quality.
• The court noted the drug was made in March 2009 while Gupta had retired on January 31, 2009, which it said made the charge baseless.
• Justice Jukanti Anil Kumar called the prosecution a non-application of mind and said launching criminal law without substantive material abuses due process and harms Article 21 liberty.
• The judgment stressed that makers of substandard medicines must still face tough action under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, while agencies must avoid mechanical prosecutions.