KARACHI, May 14: A drugs court on Saturday issued notices to the federal health secretary and other senior officials on two applications about the sale of sub-standard and spurious drugs.

The three-member drugs court headed by chairman Saathi M. Ishaq took up two identical applications for hearing and put the respondents, including the federal health secretary, the central licensing board, the registration board, the federal chief drugs inspector, on notice for June 16.

Earlier, advocates Mohammad Shakir and Nadeem Sheikh filed applications stating that, according to some media reports, the laboratory analyses showed that around 10 batches of a certain medicine were found to be sub-standard and spurious. They submitted that half of these sub-standard drugs were purchased by the government for their primary healthcare units and the remaining stock was put on sale in the market, which, the applicants said, was negligence on the part of the authorities concerned.

They impleaded the provincial health secretary, the provincial quality control board, the chief drugs inspector, Sindh, and the director of the Federal Investigation Agency, Sindh, as respondents and maintained that it was the responsibility of the respondents to immediately ban the sale of these drugs and take action against the manufacturers in accordance with the law.

The court had summoned the respondents for May 14.

However, when the applications came up for hearing on Saturday, the provincial chief drugs inspector appeared in court and submitted that the samples of the drugs in question were collected by a federal drugs inspector from the manufacturing unit in Karachi and these drugs were not available in the market as the government had purchased them. He maintained that the federal authorities were responsible in this case.

In the light of the chief drugs inspector’s statement, the applicants made amendments to their applications and impleaded the federal authorities as respondents.

Meanwhile, the same court on Saturday indicted a man in a case pertaining to the stock of unauthorised and spurious medicine.

The chairman of the drugs court read out charges against Mazharuddin Ahmed, who pleaded not guilty and opted to contest the case.

The accused has been booked under the Drugs Act, 1976 for allegedly stocking unlawful and spurious drugs at a warehouse in Bolton Market in 2005.

The court summoned the prosecution witnesses in the case on June 2 to record their testimonies.

According to the prosecution, under the supervision of a judicial magistrate, a drugs inspector along with a police team raided a warehouse in Nov 2005 and seized expired drugs, government property drugs and Tsunami relief drugs.