Kerala Court imposes fine on hospital for selling drugs from its pharmacy without licence

Chennai, 22 Dec: The Judicial First Class Magistrate Court at Nedumangadu in Thriuvananthapuram district imposed a fine of Rs.24,000 on the owner cum doctor of a private hospital at Venjaramoodu for violation of section 18 (c), Rule 65 (17) and Rule 65 (2) (3) of the Drugs & Cosmetics (D&C) Act and Rules. The order was issued on a case filed in the court in 2010 by the state drugs control department of Kerala. According to Revi S Menon, deputy drugs controller, Kerala, Anupama Hospital at Venjaramoodu was maintaining a pharmacy at the hospital without taking licence from the drugs control department. So a case of violation of section 18 (c) was registered against Dr Mohandas, the owner of the hospital and the pharmacy for keeping and selling drugs without licence. The doctor was also accused of violating Rule 65 (17) for selling date expired drugs to the patients through his pharmacy outlet in the hospital. The DDC said huge quantities of time barred drugs had been seized from the hospital and from the pharmacy during inspection conducted in 2010. Another violation committed by the hospital owner was that the pharmacy did not properly keep the purchase records of any medicine sold by it. The drug control official said the pharmacy should have maintained all the purchase bills of the drugs in batch wise. A case of violation of Rule 65 (2) (3) was also registered against Dr Mohandas. The court has imposed a fine Rs.8,000 each for each violation, and directed the hospital to pay the amount immediately. When contacted Dr Mohandas said, soon after the case came, he disposed the hospital to a retired doctor who has now remitted the fine in the court for settlement of the case. To a question whether the hospital pharmacy has got licence now, he said since the doctor himself is running the pharmacy there is no need of a licence. In Kerala, on March 25, 2010, the High Court had issued a verdict on a case filed by the state drugs control department that all the hospital pharmacies should have licences issued from the drug control authorities. Against this judgement, the Qualified Private Medical Practitioners Association had approached the Supreme Court, but no order came in their favour.

Pharmabiz