Mumbai, Sept 17: Expressing serious concern over circulation of spurious drugs in the open market, the Mumbai High Court today directed Maharashtra government to file a report within three months giving statistics on complaints received about fake medicines from general public and action taken by the authorities during January 2002 to August 2003. The direction was given by Chief Justice C K Thakker and Justice Abhay Oka on a PIL filed by Lakhpatraj Mehta whose son Alpesh Mehta passed away due to side effects after being administered spurious life saving injection "imipenum" at a municipal hospital here.

The bench asked the government to consider the problem seriously and directed the authorities to file a report on complaints of spurious drugs. Government pleader Jyoti Pawar said police had not unearthed any such racket of spurious drugs so far. However, she said there could be isolated cases of sale of spurious drugs.

The petitioner pleaded that he had met with an accident and he and his family suffered injuries. His son was admitted to Kem Hospital from where he purchased a life saving injection. However, the bill did not specify the date of manufacture, batch no and expiry date. The boy suffered reaction and passed away.

Eventually, the petitioner lodged a complaint with food and drugs controller, who registered a case against the chemist on October 23 last year. His licence was also cancelled but a minister stayed the decision to cancel the licence, the court was told. Bureau Report