HC stays ban on online sale of medicines

A division bench of Justice M Sathyanarayanan and Justice P Rajamanickam on clarifying that they have not expressed any findings on the merits of the matter, ordered the stay on the basis that it may cause severe inconvenience to patients if the ban is imposed until the matter is finally decided.

“If online trade is prohibited all of a sudden, it will affect the needy patients and those who have already ordered medicines,” thebench held before posting the plea for final hearing on January 24.

Based on this, the bench in an interim order stayed the operation of Para 38 of the single judge’s order delivered on December 17. The order while directing the Centre to notify the rules regulating the online sale of medicines on or before January 31 had held that until such time, online traders are bound not to proceed with their online business in drugs and cosmetics until the notification of the regulatory draft rules is done. Aggrieved by this, the online pharma companies moved the appeal.

Senior counsel ARL Sunderesan appearing for Tamil Nadu Chemists and Drugs Association (TNCDA), which obtained the stay, had contended that the Drugs and Cosmetics Acts or its rules had not contemplated the online sale of medicines and hence such online pharmacies should not be permitted to function in the absence of any regulation.

Senior Counsels including PR Raman, PS Raman, MS Krishnan and Satish Parasaran appearing for the online companies had contended that since there is no express legal prohibition on the online sale of medicines, they should not be restrained from carrying on such sale.