HC orders notice to Centre on PIL against online sale of drugs

The Madras High Court today issued notice to the Centre on a PIL seeking to ban websites from selling scheduled medicines online in violation of Drugs and Cosmetic Rules.
The first bench, comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice MM Sundresh before which a PIL filed by N. Ruthynamoorthy of Salem, a business man, came up, directed Assistant Solicitor General Su.Srinivasan to file a counter affidavit by four weeks.
The Assistant Solicitor General was appearing on behalf of the Union Health and Family Welfare Department and the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization.
The bench also directed the government pleader STS Murthi, appearing on behalf of the state government, to file the counter by four weeks.

The petitioner submitted that the manufacture, distribution and sale of drugs in the country is regulated under 'The Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 and Rules 1945'.
He said scheduled and non-scheduled drugs were nowadays available on different websites and distributed in the country in violation of these rules.

He claimed more than 3,000 online sites were dealing with the medicines and distributing it in the country without even bothering to follow Indian Law.
He alleged that many of the websiteswere from outside India and are selling drugs "basically prohibited in our country."
Despite a communication sent by the Joint Drugs Controller to all officials in states and Union Territories to "put a vigil on online sale of medicines and take action against those indulging in online sale of medicines, there is no proper action," the petitioner alleged.

Hence the petitioner sought a direction to the central and state authorities to ban all such websites from selling the scheduled medicines in violation of Drugs and Cosmetics Rules and to initiate appropriate action against the websites selling those drugs online.
The petitioner also sought constitution of a committee to recommend measures to ban all such websites.