Amit Deshmukh, the recently appointed minister of state for Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been criticised by activists for giving easy reprieve to errant chemists initially booked by drug inspectors.
On July 31, in the first of it's kind event, hearing of appeals was held for 450 chemists of the Marathwada region under the FDA scanner at Latur. Earlier, chemists from across Maharashtra, whose licenses were cancelled or suspended used to travel to Mumbai to seek relief from the minister's office at Mantralaya.
Deshmukh disposed off a record of 408 appeals in a single sitting. YP Rao, president, Society of Awareness for Civil Rights said, "It is humanely impossible to conduct a record of 408 hearings in a single day. It appears that the minister has not heard the pleas of each of the 408 chemists individually."
Deshmukh said, "We sat for the entire day at Latur and disposed off all appeals. There was no mass hearing. Each chemist was heard individually. In ninety per cent of the cases, they were booked because no pharmacist was present in the shop. Others were dealing in expired medicines, selling drugs without prescriptions or non-maintenance of proper records."
Defending his stand, Deshmukh said that the quantum of punishment of the chemists was reduced and that many were not absolved altogether of their culpability. "While the FDA inspectors had suspended their license for a month or so, these penalties were reduced to between a week or a fortnight. I do not have the statistics off hand though," said Deshmukh.
Activists have alleged that the hearings were a farce and were conducted at the behest of the chemists associations and written to the chief minister, Prithviraj Chavan for an inquiry. Umesh Khakke from Union of Registered Pharmacists (URP) said, "Hearings should be conducted again by a retired judge of the high court. When the chemists don't want to abide by even the most basic of rules, why should they be absolved or their quantum of punishment be reduced?"
An FDA minister is a quasi-judicial authority, who is vested with power of granting relief to errant chemists booked by the drug inspectors. The relief is granted in two steps. "According to the judgment, the initial stay order can be provided only after a hearing. Later, a second hearing should be conducted before disposing off the appeal. The stay orders have been granted without a hearing, thus violating the HC directive," said Rao.
Deshmukh replied, "I have not read the HC order hence will not be able to comment on the issue of initial stay orders."
In November last year, ex-FDA minister Satej Patil had given stay orders to 6500 errant chemists in one year, wherein activists had alleged that no proper hearings were conducted before providing interim relief.
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