PESHAWAR, June 12: The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday directed the anti-corruption establishment (ACE) to initiate proceedings for declaring an absconding owner of a pharmaceutical company proclaimed offender before securing his arrest abroad through Interpol.

The owner of Pharmedic Laboratories (Private) Limited is wanted for provision of substandard hepatitis-C injections and vaccines to the government.

Four officials of the health department, including former director general of health services Mohammad Ali Chohan, director general Dr Sharif Ahmad Khan, chief of Provincial Hepatitis Control Programme Dr Ghulam Subhani and storekeeper Mubarak Shah, are behind bars over the alleged involvement in the case. Their bail petitions have already been rejected by the high court.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Qaiser Rasheed ordered the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Secretary and provincial health secretary to hold an emergency meeting and ensure purchase and supply of hepatitis-C vaccines to facilities for the benefit of the people.

The Peshawar High Court chief justice had taken suo moto notice of the case in February and had issued directives to the director of ACE Syed Fayyaz Ali Shah to conduct an inquiry into it.

The court had observed that they had reports that despite having information that the said injection was substandard, the accused went ahead with purchasing it in bulk.

When the bench began hearing on Wednesday, ACE director Fayyaz Ali Shah produced a report about the inquiry into the matter.

He said the owner of Pharmedic Laboratories (Pvt) Limited involved in provision of the substandard vaccines had been absconding and they had reports that he had gone abroad.

The official said ACE was trying to seek help from Federal Investigation Agency so that the owner of the pharmaceutical company could be nabbed and brought back to Pakistan with the help of Interpol.

He said the vaccines purchased by the health department had expired in May.

The bench directed the official that with the support of FIA, Interpol should be approached so as to issue Red warrants of the absconding owner.

It also observed that proceedings should be initiated for declaring him a PO following which his properties, including the said factory, should be attached. The bench directed the chief and health secretaries to ensure purchase of standard vaccines so that the patients should not suffer.

It issued directives to the National Accountability Bureau and the ACE for supervising the entire purchasing process so that the past wrongdoings should not be repeated.

The bench observed that there should be proper storage facilities for those vaccines as currently, there was a greater possibility that the efficacy of those vaccines would be adversely affected due to electricity loadshedding.

The bench also ordered ACE to make recovery from the said pharmaceutical company on account of 1.1 million vials of the vaccine, which were missing but the suspects had claimed that those were stored with the company as the health department was not having proper storage capacity here.

The inquiry report showed that a total of 1,906,229 interferon injections were purchased under the 2009-10 to 2011-12 Annual Development Programme.

As per stock register entries, 1,133,998 vials were issued by the project director to various districts whereas the remaining 772,002 vials were missing. Similarly, Interferon vial purchased under the Benazir Health Support Programme stood at 1,698,997.