Assam Pharmacy Council Cancelled Registration of 1,374 Pharmacies

All documents found fake

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: The Assam Pharmacy Council (APC) has permanently cancelled the registrations of 1,374 pharmacists, and told the State Drug Control Administration to cancel the licences of pharmacies run under these registrations. There are 16,497 registered pharmacists in Assam.

This has been a long-drawn-out issue. Under the Pharmacy Act-1948, registration of pharmacists is done in two different ways in the State following two different Sections under the Act. The pharmacists registered under Section 32(B) of the Act in the State were originally registered in other States of the country from where they shifted to Assam through re-registration. The pharmacists registered under Section 32 (2) of the Act, on the contrary, have their direct registration in Assam.

The State government had received an allegation in 2008 that most of the pharmacists registered under Section 32(B) of the Act were fake ones, and that led the government to form a scanning committee to ascertain the veracity of the allegation. The scanning committee found the allegation true, and recommended the APC to cancel the registrations of the fake pharmacists. That development led many of the pharmacists and some of their organizations registered under Section 32(B) of the Act move the Gauhati High Court in 2011. The High Court clubbed all the cases and issued an order on May 31, 2018 asking all the pharmacists having their registration under Section 32(B) of the Act to submit their documents to the APC for verification. However, only 14 pharmacists complied with the HC order and submitted their documents to the APC. Following subsequent orders from the High Court, only 1,021 pharmacists submitted their documents to the APC for verification. On its part, the APC formed an expert committee for the verification of those documents. Interestingly enough, the expert committee found all the documents fake. The APC then issued show-cause notices to all the 3,174 pharmacists registered under Section 32 (B) of the Act. However, many of the pharmacists did not reply to the show-cause notices issued to them, and that led the APC to cancel the registration of 1,374 pharmacists and tell the State Drug Control Administration to cancel the licences of pharmacies which are run with the fake registration of pharmacists. According to official sources, the replies of pharmacists to the show-cause notices issued to them will also be examined and action will be taken.

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