Punjab-Haryana High Court
Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited vs The State Of Haryana & Others on 19 March, 2013
Author: L. N. Mittal
Bench: L. N. Mittal
IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA
AT CHANDIGARH
CRL. MISC. No.M-14171 OF 2008
DATE OF DECISION : 19th MARCH, 2013
Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited
.... Petitioner
Versus
The State of Haryana & others
.... Respondents
CORAM : HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE L. N. MITTAL
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Present : Mr. Vikram Chaudhary, Advocate with
Dr. Puneet Kaur Sekhon, Advocate for the petitioner.
Mr. Subhash Godara, Additional Advocate General, Haryana
for respondent No.1 and 2.
Mr. D. S. Bishnoi, Advocate for respondents No.3 and 4.
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L. N. MITTAL, J. (ORAL)
Pursuant to order of the preceding date, respondents No.3 and 4 i.e. Union of India through Ministry of Health and Union of India through Ministry of Food and Consumer Affairs, have put in appearance through counsel, who on instructions from Mr. Shyam Sunder Agrawal, Assistant Director, National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), stated that Department of Pharmaceutical under Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers of Union of India is the concerned department for pricing of the drug in question. Accordingly, Union of India through Ministry of Chemicals and CRL. MISC. No.M-14171 OF 2008 -2- Fertilizers is ordered to be impleaded as respondent No.5 to the main petition.
Necessary correction in the title of the petition be made by the office.
Accused-Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited has filed this petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (in short, Cr.P.C.) for quashing order dated 25.01.2008 (Annexure P-2) passed by learned Additional Sessions Judge, Panchkula, thereby dismissing revision petition filed by the petitioner against summoning order dated 02.09.2003 passed by learned Chief Judicial Magistrate, Panchkula, thereby summoning the petitioner as accused in criminal complaint (Annexure P-3) instituted by State of Haryana through Drugs Inspector under Section 17(c) and Section 27(d) of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 (in short, the 'Act').
In nutshell, allegation in the complaint against the petitioner is that the petitioner is manufacturing medicine called Stanhist-10 tablets and is selling strip of ten tablets to its authorized dealers @ `2/- and the dealers sell the same to the retailers @ `2.45 but the printed maximum retail price on the strip is `26/- (local taxes extra) although the retail price of the strip should not have been above `3/- and therefore, the consumers of the said medicine have to pay about 900% of the retail price of the strip.
On the preceding date of hearing, counsel for the petitioner contended that Section 17 of the Act refers to quality of the drugs and not the price thereof and no offence has been committed by the petitioner by alleged over-pricing of the drug in question. It was also contended that even under the Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 1995 (in short, the 'Order') CRL. MISC. No.M-14171 OF 2008 -3- issued under Section 3 of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955 (in short, the 'EC Act'), Government has power under paragraph 3 of the Order to fix maximum sale price of bulk drugs specified in first schedule to the Order but the drug in question does not fall in the first schedule nor any price of the drug in question has been fixed by the Government under the provisions of the Order and therefore, no offence is made out against the petitioner even under the provision of the EC Act.
Since the case involved important question of law relating to heavy over-pricing of the drug, Union of India through Ministry of Health (presuming that the Act is being administered by the said Ministry) and Union of India through Ministry of Food and Consumer Affairs (which administers the EC Act) were impleaded as respondents No.3 and 4. However, today Mr. Shyam Sunder Agrawal, Assistant Director, NPPA stated that the Act as well as the Order are administered by the Department of Pharmaceutical under the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers and accordingly Union of India through the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers has been ordered to be impleaded as respondent No.5 today.
I have heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the case file.
Learned counsel for the petitioner reiterated the contentions noticed hereinbefore.
Learned counsel for Union of India (respondents No.3 to 5) on instructions from Mr. Shyam Sunder Agrawal, Assistant Director, NPPA stated that the allegation against the petitioner does not amount to CRL. MISC. No.M-14171 OF 2008 -4- contravention of the Order because the drug does not fall in first schedule to the Order.
However, learned State counsel on instructions from Mr. Narender Kumar Ahuja, Assistant State Drug Controller, Haryana and Mr. Parveen Kumar, Drug Control Officer, Panchkula contended that by highly over-pricing the drug, the petitioner has committed offence under Section 17(c) of the Act punishable under Section 27(d) of the Act. Section 17 of the Act is accordingly reproduced herunder:
"17. Misbranded drugs. - For the purposes of this Chapter, a drug shall be deemed to be misbranded, -
(a) if it is so coloured, coated, powdered or polished that damage is concealed or if it is made to appear of better or greater therapeutic value than it really is; or
(b) if it is not labeled in the prescribed manner; or
(c) if its label or container or anything accompanying the drug bears any statement, design or device which makes any false claim for the drug or which is false or misleading in any particular."
Learned State counsel contended that statement regarding price of the drug on the strip of the drug is completely misleading and therefore, it is mis-branded drug within the purview of Section 17 of the Act and the same is punishable under Section 27(d) of the Act.
I have carefully considered the rival contentions. Section 17 of the Act relates to quality of the drugs and labelling thereof. Accordingly, it does not relate to pricing of the drugs. The expression 'misleading in any particular' used in concluding part of Section 17(c) of the Act, which has CRL. MISC. No.M-14171 OF 2008 -5- been emphatically pressed into service by the State counsel to contend that the drug in question is mis-branded due to wrong statement regarding price thereof, cannot read in isolation. The entire Section 17 of the Act has to be read as a whole and the aforesaid expression cannot be read in isolation. The very purpose of enacting Section 17 of the Act is to ensure proper quality of the drugs and to avoid misrepresentation or misbranding thereof by false or misleading statements etc. regarding contents or quality thereof on its label, container etc. The purpose of Section 17 of the Act is not against mis-statement regarding price of the drug. The expression 'misleading in any particular' has to be read and interpreted accordingly. There is no averment that there is any false statement etc. regarding quality or contents etc. of the drug. The alleged mis-statement regarding price of the drug would not make it 'mis-branded drug' within the meaning of Section 17 of the Act. Consequently contention raised by counsel for the petitioner has to be accepted. It may be added that over-pricing of the drug is also not in contravention of the provisions of the Order because the drug in question does not fall in first schedule to the Order nor price thereof has been determined by the Government under the provisions of the Order. Consequently, alleged over-pricing of the drug is also not punishable under the EC Act.
Before parting with the judgment, it has to be noticed that although the petitioner is allegedly selling the drug in question to the consumers at about 900% of the reasonable price of the drug, but there appears to be no legal provision in force to save the consumers from such naked fleecing of the consumers by the petitioner or other drug CRL. MISC. No.M-14171 OF 2008 -6- manufacturers by over-pricing the drug to such an extent. It is surprising that no remedial or ameliorating step has been taken either by State or by Union of India in this regard. The court hopes that now at least the concerned authorities shall wake up and shall take some remedial step to save the consumers from such fleecing.
For the reasons aforesaid, I find that even taking the averments made in the impugned complaint (Annexure P-3) at face value, no offence either under Section 17(c) read with Section 27(d) of the Act or under Section 3 read with Section 7 of the EC Act, is made out against the petitioner. Accordingly the impugned criminal complaint (Annexure P-3) is quashed along with summoning order (Annexure P-4) and revisional order (Annexure P-2) and all other consequential proceedings arising therefrom.
19th March, 2013 (L. N. MITTAL)
'raj' JUDGE