shops booked by fda allowed to get away easily.
Satej Patil, minister of state for home with charge of the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA), has been criticized by an NGO for letting errant chemists off the hook.
In a letter to Patil on Tuesday, the Society for Awareness of Civil Rights said many chemists who have been booked under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act were being granted stay orders by the minister’s office and allowed to function without qualified pharmacists.
“The minister’s office is disposing off appeals after receiving applications and issuing stay orders without opening pages of the appeals,” says the letter signed by RP Yajurvedi Rao, president of the organisation. A copy of the letter is with dna.
Last week, dna reported about an FDA study which found that there were no pharmacists in 7,675 chemist shops of a total 51,447 shops in the state. While they were booked, only four chemists have been prosecuted to date.
The NGO has demanded a probe by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) “to bring transparency and accountability. Incidentally, the ACB is under the home ministry, which is also under Patil’s charge.
“There has been next to no implementation of the law. Errant chemists have gone ahead and obtained stays, to seek relief,” Mahesh Zagade, FDA commissioner, told a press conference on Monday.
About 6,500 chemists who have been booked have managed to obtain stays from the minister’s office. Of these, 650 are in Mumbai.
According to the rules, it is mandatory to conduct hearings on the appeals received by the minister’s office. The petitioner, in this case the chemists, and the regulatory authority, that is the FDA assistant commissioners, must be summoned and heard, before a decision is taken on granting a stay.
“It has come to our notice on accessing the stay orders that all the orders on appeals delivered by the minister are based on stereotyped documentation, provided by the same person in the same format and having the same prayers,” said Rao. The minister was not available for comment.
Wrong-doers getting away
The Society for Awareness of Civil Rights, an NGO, says about 6,500 chemists, who have been booked by the FDA, have managed to get stay orders from the office of minister of state Satej Patil.
According to the rules, it is mandatory to conduct hearings on appeals after summoning the chemists and the regulatory officials.
But, the NGO says, it appears that the minister’s office has been issuing stay orders without even opening the pages of the appeals.
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