Delhi High Court directs Centre and Delhi Governments to restrict the sale of medicines by E-Pharmacies
Delhi High Court has directed the Central Government and Delhi Government to restrain the E-Pharmacies from selling medicines online. The High Court issued the direction in the petition filed by Delhi based dermatologist Dr. Zaheer Ahmed.
The petition filed by Dr. Ahmed highlighted the severe risks attached to online sale of the medicines which more often than not is done without any verification of the prescriptions. This leads to high chances of drug abuse and mis-utilisation of addictive drugs. The petition alleged that unregulated and unlicensed sale from E-Pharmacies increase the risk of sale of misbranded and substandard drugs.
The Madras High Court today, also imposed a blanket ban on the sale of medicines by E-Pharmacies till the time there is clarity on the regulations on the sector.
Quick Views:
- We believe that the direction issued by the High Court will put additional pressure on the Central Government to adopt that draft E-Pharma regulations that were published in August 2018.
- By making a blanket ban on the sale of E-Pharma, the order of the Delhi High Court also impacts E-Pharma companies that have received valid licenses as per the provisions stipulated in the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1945. This will reduce the growth of the sector as a whole. It is our humble opinion that the Delhi High Court should have restricted the ban only to those E-Pharmacies operating without valid licenses under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1945.
Winding- up cases under SIC Act pending in the High Courts must be transferred to NCLT: SC
Supreme Court of India (“SC”) in Jaipur Metals & Electricals Employees Organization v. Jaipur Metals & Electricals Ltd. decided that winding- up cases initiated under the provisions of erstwhile Sick Industrial Companies Act (“SICA”) must be transferred to the National Company Law Tribunal (“NCLT”) when a party files an application in accordance with Section 7 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (“IBC”).
The matter before the SC was brought as an appeal against the Rajasthan High Court (“High Court”) judgment passed earlier this year in which it refused to transfer the pending winding- up proceedings to the NCLT. Additionally, the High Court set aside the order of NCLT in which the NCLT had accepted the financial creditor’s petition under Section 7 of IBC.
The Supreme Court set aside the High Court judgment and held that the winding- up proceeding will continue in the NCLT.
Quick Views:
- We believe that this judgment clarifies the law on transfer of winding up cases from High Court to the NCLT. This judgment comes as a respite to those financial creditors who have been caught up in the winding- up litigation under the SICA.
MCA extends the last day of filing Form NFRA-1
The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (“MCA”) issued a circular on December 13, 2018 extending the deadline for filing Form NFRA-1. Form NFRA-1 is required to be filled by every body corporate regulated under the National Financial Reporting Authority (“NFRA”) Rules, within 30 days of the commencement of these rules i.e., from November 13, 2018. Under Form NFRA-1, the body corporate is required to provide the particulars of the auditor appointed by the body corporate.
The MCA received several representations regarding extension of the last date of filing of Form NFRA-1 and MCA responded by extending the timeline. Now, the body corporates are required to fill the Form NFRA-1 within 30 days of the deployment of this form on the MCA or NFRA website.
Quick Views:
We believe this is a welcome step taken by the MCA as they have taken into account the time gap between the date on which the NFRA Rules were notified and the date on which the Form NFRA-1 was actually put up on the website.