Sale of fake Covid vax: SC wants concrete case

The Supreme Court on Thursday threw out a petition seeking a direction to the Centre to prevent sale of fake Coronavirus vaccines in the country by framing "strict" guidelines on their distribution to public.

A Bench of Chief Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde and Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian said it cannot pass general directions, though it understood the "motivation" behind the PIL.

"We understand your motivation, but you file a concrete case. We cannot pass general directions. We are not a legislature," the Bench told lawyer Vishal Tiwari who filed the plea in his personal capacity.

The court allowed him to withdraw, with liberty to file it afresh, but Tiwari refused to withdraw the petition he had filed before the roll-out of the vaccines, referring to a global alert by INTERPOL to the law enforcement agencies of 192 member countries to be prepared for the organised crime networks targeting Covid-19 vaccines, both physically and online.