Spurious drugs: 3 months on, Sirmaur cops yet to act against 'offender' couple

Ambika Sharma

Solan, December 1

About three months after the registration of a case of forgery, cheating and criminal conspiracy, the Sirmaur police are yet to act against a couple who had allegedly furnished a forged Bachelor of Pharmacy degree for obtaining a drug manufacturing licence for their Kala Amb-based firm Vardhman Pharma.

The degree was in Meenakshi Jain’s name while her husband MC Jain had furnished it to the Himachal Drugs Control Administration (DCA) for the grant of licence. A bachelor’s degree in pharmacy or science is mandatory for obtaining a drug manufacturing licence from the State Drug Controlling Authority, according to the rules under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940.

Vardhman Pharma was allegedly caught manufacturing spurious medicines during raids by the drug authorities in 2013 and 2016.

The firm had also allegedly supplied spurious life-saving drugs to the Tripura Government in 2012 and 2013, in a case that is being investigated by the CBI. The complaint regarding the fake degree was lodged by the DCA at the Kala Amb police station in September. Assistant Licensing Authority Garima Sharma said the fraud was detected during the scrutiny of documents while filing a court reply against the company in an alleged case of spurious drugs.Sirmaur Additional SP Som Dutt said an investigation was underway in the fake degree case and documents were being verified.

Meenakshi and MC Jain have been termed “habitual offenders” by the court where trial is pending against them in various cases of spurious drugs. The authorities concerned failed to arrest MC Jain for several months before he obtained bail from the court. He, however, was arrested by the Bhopal police from Ambala in another case for allegedly forging a court judgment on November 21.

In another case, a team of the State Taxes and Excise had detected fake e-way bills pertaining to the sale of sanitisers by Kala Amb-based Dutch Formulations and its sister concern at Ambala in February. Dutch Formulations is run by MK Jain’s son Aniket Jain.

The STE officials had concluded that in the garb of sanitisers, ENA was illegally supplied to a Jogindernagar-based bottling plant.