The Bangladesh High Court yesterday ordered 20 pharmaceutical companies to stop manufacturing medicines within seven days for their failure to adhere to quality standards.
The High Court bench of Justice Syed Muhammad Dastagir Husain and Justice A K M Shahidul Hossain passed the order after the hearing.
The court issued a ruling asking authorities concerned why the government’s inaction in cancelling the licences of the 20 pharmaceutical companies should not be declared illegal and unlawful.
The court also issued two other rulings asking why it should not order the cancellation of licences of the 20 companies and 14 other antibiotics makers, which were also ordered to stop production.
The health secretary, director general (DG) of the directorate general of health services, director of the directorate general of drug administration, inspector general of police, DGs of national consumer rights protection department and Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) have been asked to respond to the ruling within four weeks.
On June 5, a writ petition was filed with the High Court (HC) seeking its directives to revoke the licences of 20 pharmaceutical companies for their failure to produce quality medicines.
On behalf of Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh (HRPB), lawyer Manzill Murshid filed the writ petition following a report published in a vernacular daily on April 19.
The writ also sought a bar on producing all types of antibiotics by 14 other companies.
On September 20, 2014, the parliamentary standing committee on health and family welfare ministry formed a five-member probe committee to identify the pharmaceutical companies involved in making substandard and adulterated medicines, said Manzill Murshid.
After visiting 84 drug manufacturing companies, the committee submitted a report to the standing committee on February 1, 2016 where it recommended scrapping the licenses of 20 for manufacturing substandard medicines - the same 20 companies on which the HC order was passed yesterday.
The committee’s report also suggested cancelling the permission of the 14 antibiotics manufacturing companies on which the HC also passed its order.