Madras High Court refuses to set aside stay on online sale of drugs

Chennai: The Madras High Court recently refused to set aside the stay order given by it on the issue of the online sale of drugs. It also directed the Central government to come up with draft rules for the online sale of drugs by 31 January.

In an earlier hearing on November 1, the court had granted an interim injunction restraining the online sale of medicines.

Justice R Mahadevan passed the interim order on a plea moved by the Chennai-based Tamil Nadu Chemists & Druggists Association seeking a direction to authorities concerned to block links of websites that selling medicines online. The court directed the Centre to file a counter and posted the matter for further hearing to November 9.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported, The order came after the petitioner filed a writ petition seeking a direction to the respondents to block the link of all such websites who are carrying online sale of Schedule H, H1 & Schedule X medicines in violation of Rule 65 & 97 of the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945, till the licences are granted to sell medicines through online.

According to the association, though online shopping might be convenient to consumers, purchasing medicines from unlicensed online stores can be risky as they may sell fake, expired, contaminated, unapproved drugs or otherwise unsafe products that are dangerous to patients and which might put their health at risk.

The learned senior counsel for the petitioner further submitted that subsequent to the order of this Court, the government issued the draft rules on 28.08.2018, legitimising the whole E-commerce sale of drugs. However, the Central Government gave 45 days time to record and consider objections. While the matter is pending thus, online sale of the above-mentioned drugs are still in existence without obtaining proper licences, and hence should not be allowed.

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