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Court order to enforce norms on storage of drugs

By Our Staff Reporter

KOCHI, JUNE 9 . The Kerala High Court has directed the State Drugs Controller to take immediate steps to enforce the conditions prescribed for the storage of drugs in wholesale and retail drug shops.

Justice C. N. Ramachandran Nair also ordered that if the licensees did not keep drugs in thick walled wooden shelves with wooden shutters, the licence of the drug shop should be cancelled.

The directives were issued while disposing of two writ petitions filed by two pharmaceutical companies challenging the prosecution launched against the companies for violation of storage condition printed on their drug-oxytocin injection, which is administered during childbirth to help uterine contraction.

The petitioners sought a declaration that the labelling of storage condition should be in accordance with the provision of the Indian Pharmacopoeia. Though the court directed the Drugs Controller not to launch prosecution, the court refused to give a declaration, as it felt that the storage conditions mentioned in the Indian Pharmacopoeia were misleading and confusing.

The court while referring to the submission of the Assistant Drugs Controller that drug dealers were not following the instruction for using thick wooden shelf with wooden shutters to prevent heat exposure, said that it was common knowledge that drug dealers were exhibiting drugs in shelves with full glass shutters.

In most cases, the shelves were attached to building walls. Exposure of the drugs to such high heat for long and on regular basis would render them useless.

Therefore, unless the drugs were stored in think walled wooden shelves with wooden shutters, drugs would lose their potency.

The court said that the drugs controller was bound to insist on maintenance of storage condition in godowns.

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