Owners of Himachal's Digital Vision among five chargesheeted

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, December 21

Almost three years after 12 infants died and six were disabled after consuming contaminated cough syrup manufactured by Himachal Pradesh-based Digital Vision, the Udhampur police have finally filed a chargesheet against five accused, including owners of the pharma firm, finding them guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

The 742-page chargesheet filed in the court of Judicial Magistrate (First Class), Ramnagar (Udhampur), names owners of Kala Amb-based Digital Vision Purushottam Goel, his sons Manik and Konic Goel; Jammu-based wholesaler Varinder Jandial, who bought the contaminated drugs from Digital Vision, and Ramnagar chemist Mohinder Singh, who sold the cough syrups to unsuspecting families.

PGI doc had exposed contamination

• Chargesheet finds Purushottam Goel and his two sons guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder for January 2020 deaths of 12 infants, who were given cough syrup made by firm
• The syrup had also left six infants disabled; PGI’s paediatrician had exposed the contamination with diethylene glycol; chargesheet comes 33 months after the deaths

The owners of Digital Vision have been chargesheeted under Sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 274, 275 (drug adulteration with noxious substance) and 325 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt) while Jandial and Singh have been chargesheeted for all offences barring Section 274 which pertains to manufacture of toxic medicines.

They face up to 10 years in jail, if convicted. The first hearing in the case is scheduled for January 4 in Udhampur’s Sessions Court. All the accused are currently on bail. The 2020 case had generated intense public debate on the safety of medicines after PGI paediatrician Bhavneet Bharti in 2020 exposed the lethal contamination of the cough syrup with diethylene glycol — the same substance which the WHO recently linked to the death of 70 Gambian children.

Bharti’s findings followed admission of several Ramnagar infants to PGIMS-Chandigarh, and blew the lid off the case. The FIR is dated March 3, 2020, with the Udhampur police constituting a special investigation team (SIT) the same year to probe the tragedy on a day-to-day basis.

The SIT, however, dragged its feet until it was reconstituted last year leading to the chargesheet today. Investigation officer Bishim Dubey expanded the ambit of the probe to include six disabled children apart from the 12 deceased, all aged under three years.

The Jammu and Kashmir administration had in 2021 paid Rs 3 lakh each compensation to the families of the deceased children on the directions of the National Human Rights Commission. The UT’s challenge to the compensation amount was recently turned down by the Supreme Court.