STATE OF GOA Vs. CARYL PHARMA AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By this appeal, the State is challenging the acquittal of the respondents from an offence punishable under Section 18(a)(I) read with Section 27(d) of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act,1940 (the Act, for short).

(2.) Brief facts are that PW1 Mrs. Jyoti Sardessai, who is the complainant in this case, and a Drugs Inspector, had visited the premises of M/s. Matrix Pharma, Ponda, Goa on 14/01/2004 and collected the sample of a medicine 'Caryrox', Batch No.C202, which is a patent and proprietary medicine. It is a suspension of a generic drug 'Roxithromycin'. The drug was manufactured by the respondent no.3 of which the respondent no.4 is a proprietor under loan license from the respondent no.1, of which the respondent no.2 is a proprietor. The manufacturing date of medicine is July, 2002 and the expiry was shown as June 2004. According to the prosecution, the sample was collected as per the established procedure. When the sample was sent for analysis by the State Laboratory in Goa, it was found that it was substandard.

(3.) At the trial, the prosecution examined in all four witnesses, namely PW1 Jyoti Sardessai, PW2 Vishwanath, who is the proprietor of M/s. Matrix Pharma and a chemist, PW3 Mohammad Khalid Ahmed Khan and PW4 Bimol Mandal, who is from CDL, Calcutta. There was no defence evidence led on behalf of the respondents, except production of a test certificate dated 09/08/2002, by which the sample was got examined through a private Lab, namely, Strides Arcolab Ltd. The contents of each 5 ml was found to contain 48.4 mg of Roxithromycin. This was produced in order to show that in fact the medicine conforms to the required standard and no offence was made out.