Supreme Court Seeks Centre's Response On Plea Alleging No Approval For Remdesivir and Favipiravir To Be Used To Treat COVID-19

The Supreme Court on Thursday issued notice to the Union Government in a plea alleging that two medicines Remdesivir and Favipiravir are being used for the treatment of COVID-19 without approval.

A bench of Chief Justice SA Bobde, Justices AS Bopanna & V. Ramasubramaniun said that the issue needs to be brought to the attention of the Indian Government and issued notice to the Centre.

The plea by Advocate ML Sharma alleges that the companies have created media hype around their medicines & exploited citizen's fears. The plea sought for the prosecution of ten pharmaceutical companies who were allegedly marketing these drugs for COVID-19 treatment. The Supreme Court has however issued notice only to the Central Government.

Today, when the matter came up for hearing, Sharma told the Court that he had also annexed a report of the World Health Organisation (WHO) showing that several hundred trials have proven ineffectiveness or little effect of Remdisivir and Favipiravir on COVID19 patients. "This has been corroborated by Chinese, Americans," he said.

The plea states that it is "challenging manufacturing and supply of Drugs without license & seeking writ direction to C.B.I. for investigation and to file their report before this Hon'ble court for further direction to prosecute all involved accused persons u/s s.18 & 27A of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 and S.420 &120-B of IPC couple with further directions for recovery of compensation to pay to all Covid patients including doctors in the interest of justice."

The plea has alleeed that Cipla Ltd., Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, Hetero Labs Ltd., 6. Zydus Cadila Healthcare Ltd., Mylan, Jubilant Life Sciences Limited, Syngene International Ltd, Biocon Company, Jenburkt Pharmaceuticals Limited & Sun Pharma are Indian pharmaceutical company who have signed partnership agreement with foreign companies i.e. Gilead Science Inc USA and Fujifilm Japan, to manufacture and sell the drug, Remdesivir & Avagin (Favipiravir) in India.

"Without having a licence, they are manufacturing and selling impugned drugs as a Medicine for corona in India," says Sharma in his Plea.

That impugned two drugs, Remdesivir of Gilead Science Inc USA and & Avagin (Favipiravir) of Fujifilm Toyama Chemical, japan are not admitted and certified as a medicine for Covid-19 till date by any country. It's under trial and no country, including India, have issued licence to manufacture and sale it in the country. It is adulterated drug. However, is allowed under strict terms by FDA-USA to test in emergencies under strict control of the doctors' subject to report of each testing report to FDA regularly.
- Plea in SC

In this backdrop, Sharma has contended that the issue is a serious injury to the life and liberty to the citizens of India and is in violation of Article 21 as well as the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940.

Sharma has further stated that "Indians cannot be used as a human animal for Lab Testing object by companies for their uncertified drugs".

"......more than 300 government doctors died despite using impugned Avagin (Favipiravir) & Remdesivir in hand supplied by the respondent's companies therefore respondent companies and their directors are liable to be prosecuted u/s 27A of the Drug Acts. The death is not only due to covid-19 but happened also due to reliability and use of impugned drugs of Corona being convinced by the respondent companies via media hype. It's a subject matter of the C.B.I. investigation to identifies supplier responsible for inducement to use impugned drug which were not effective and in result led to death," the plea states.

Additionally, the petition has also sought issuance of directions to recover proper compensations from these companies to pay to the all exploited citizen of India, including all doctors (private and government) who died despite using impugned drugs supplied inducing it as a medicine for corona by the respondent companies .

In furtherance of his prayers, the petitioner has sought issuance of directions to the Centre for providing facilities, scheme and compensation from the Government to all the families of doctors immediately.