A court on Monday ordered the Drug Quality Control Board to cancel the licence of a private pharmaceutical firm for selling counterfeit medicines and sentenced three senior officers to two years imprisonment and Rs 0.1 million fine each, a private TV channel reported.
According to details, Judge Abdul Majeed Nasar was hearing a case filed by the board against the firm — having the head office in Sadiqabad, Punjab — for selling fake medicines across Balochistan.
In addition to the two-year sentence, the firm’s managing director Farooq Ameen Bajwa, quality control secretary Muhammad Rafah Raza and production in-charge Muhammad Siddique Shahid were made liable to pay a fine of Rs 0.1 million after the allegations against the company were proved correct in court.
The court ordered that the accused would serve an extra month of jail time in case of failure to pay the fine. The court issued directives to drug regulatory authority to cancel the company’s licence and also issued non-bailable arrest warrants for four medical store owners accused of selling these fake medicines.
The owners had been asked to appear before the court, however, upon failing to do so, the arrest warrants were issued against them.
Non-bailable arrest warrants were also issued for former health secretary Shafi Muhammad Zehri. The National Accountability Bureau had initiated an investigation into the purchase of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine. Subsequently, a case was filed before an accountability court and immediate notices were issued to Zehri to appear in court. However, when Zehri failed to do so, after which arrest warrants were issued against him.
