Defence medicine racket: 13 booked for illegal drug sale
MUMBAI: Thirteen retailers, medicine distributors and an online pharmacy were booked on Tuesday in a countrywide black-marketing racket of medicines manufactured exclusively for defence and navy personnel.
Officials from the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) said investigators have traced the drug racket to various cities, including Mumbai, Delhi, Indore, and Kolkata.
Online pharmacy Medlife, one of the companies against which the first information report (FIR) has been filed, has denied any wrongdoing.
“These medicines in question were directly supplied to us by the manufacturer’s distributor without notifying us that they were not meant for retail sale. We had no role to play here as the batches of medicines were supplied along with the regular process of supply and with all the licenses and invoices,” said the official spokesperson of Medlife. “We are cooperating with FDA officials to ensure the real culprits are brought to task.”
In the last week of January, FDA seized type 2 diabetes medi- cines Sitagliptin Phosphate and Vildagliptin worth more than ₹30 lakh from warehouses.
The distributors and online medicine traders were a part of the racket, siphoning medicines exclusively manufactured for defence and navy personnel by illegally removing the tag, ‘For defence use only, not for sale’ from the drug packaging. These medicines were then sold to retailers.
“We want to unearth the national racket as it involves medicines manufactured for defence, government supply, and those under the Employees State Insurance Corporation scheme,” said Dr Pallavi Darade, commissioner, FDA, Maharashtra.
On Monday, FIRS were registered at Taloja, Mulund and Byculla police stations under the Drugs and Cosmetic Act 1940 Act and Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Abhay Pandey, president of All Food and Drugs Licence Holders Foundation (AFDLHF), who is assisting the FDA in the investigations, said the medicines for government agencies are sold at 45% to 50% lower costs than other retail drugs. “Black-marketers try to lay their hands on the stock and earn profits by selling them at high rates,” said Pandey.