Srinagar, Aug 18: The High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh has quashed a 14-year-old criminal complaint against pharmaceutical major Albert David Limited, while ordering a separate administrative inquiry into how a key drug sample went missing for nearly eight years during the trial.
Justice Wasim Sadiq Nargal passed the order on a petition filed by the company under Section 482 of the CrPC, quashing the 2012 complaint, the cognizance order of February 2020, and a subsequent arrest warrant issued against the firm by the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM), Kathua.
The case dates back to 2011, when a Drugs Inspector in Kathua lifted samples of needles manufactured by Albert David and sent them for testing.
A Government Analyst declared the sample substandard after it failed a sterility test.
The company, within the 28-day period prescribed under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, formally disputed the report and sought re-testing of the sample by the Central Drugs Laboratory (CDL), Kolkata — a statutory right available to it under Section 25 of the Act.
A complaint was filed by the Drug Inspector in May 2012 and the sample was reportedly forwarded to the CDL for re-analysis.
However, no report was received for over four years. In October 2016, the CDL informed the trial court that no such sample had ever reached it.
Despite this, the CJM merely directed the Drug Inspector “to take necessary steps” and no further action was taken for nearly four more years.
Cognizance was eventually taken in February 2020, based on the original Government Analyst’s report, by which time the sample’s shelf life — which expired in July 2012 — was long over.
The High Court held that the company had been deprived of a “valuable statutory right” and that the delay could not be attributed to it.
Relying on Supreme Court rulings in Medicamen Biotech Ltd v Rubina Bose, and State of Haryana v Unique Farmaid, the court observed that continuation of the prosecution amounted to abuse of the process of law and violated the right to a speedy trial under Article 21.
Terming the eight-year delay a matter that “shocks the conscience” of the court, Justice Nargal directed the Registrar General to place the judgment, along with the complete trial court record, before the Chief Justice on the administrative side.
The court further directed the Drug Controller, Drugs and Food Control Organisation, J&K, to constitute a three-member committee within a week, co-opting two experts in drug law, to fix responsibility for the lapse.
The panel has also been asked to examine whether any official of the company was involved in manipulating records to prevent the sample from reaching the CDL, after hearing all stakeholders, and to submit its report in a sealed cover within four weeks.
