Chennai: The Madras High Court today issued a blanket ban on the online sale of medicines in the country until a proper framework of rules could be formed by the Centre.
The judgement was passed after the court heard a writ petition filed by Tamilnadu Chemists and Druggists Association secretary, K K Selvan seeking to ban websites that sell drugs until the Centre brings into force a legal framework for permitting such sales.
Senior counsel for the petitioner, A R L Sundaresan argued in court that laws for pharmacies in India are derived from the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, the Drugs and Cosmetics Rule, 1945 and the Pharmacy Act, 1948 were written prior to the arrival of computers and India. He said that India still does not have any concrete laws defined for the online sale of medicines.
“Though various amendments had been made to the Acts, no provision had been incorporated to utilise information technology for sale of medicines online,” he said.
Sundaresan also said that online sale of drugs listed in Schedule H, H1 and X (that include sleeping pills, powerful antibiotics etc) were rampant in the country though there was a specific legal bar on selling such medicines without the prescription of medical practitioners.
Following the hearing, Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana directed the Centre to put into place proper statutory rules for e-pharmacies to follow by January 2019 and held that the pharmacies in the country would be entitled to sell medicines online only after obtaining licences under the said rules.
In its affidavit, the petitioner association had written that as per the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules of 1945, it is not permitted to ship, mail or provide door delivery of the prescribed medicines. ‘Yet, drugs of scheduled and non scheduled category are available online on different websites and distributed across the country. As on date, there are more than 3,500 such websites,” it claimed.
According to the association, purchasing medicines from unlicensed online stores, though convenient for a customer, could be risky as they might sell fake, expired, contaminated and unapproved drugs or unsafe products that are dangerous to patients and that might put their health at risk.
“Medicines are not simple items of commerce, they are an essential component of patients health. They must be administrated to patients in a timely manner as prescribed by a registered medical practitioner and such drugs are provided under the direct supervision of a qualified pharmacist for the benefit of patients,” an association spokesperson said.