The supreme court has issued a notice to Union Health Ministry, all states and union territories on a Public interest litigation (PIL) filed by a law student and his advocate father, on hospital pharmacies. They alleged that patients are compelled to purchase medicines from in house pharmacy stores of hospitals, selling drugs at inflated prices. The petition stated, "Ban the hospitals and hospital pharmacies from compelling the patients to mandatorily buy medicines from the hospital pharmacies only at MRP or manipulated and artificially inflated prices.
This practice is followed to gain profit from the sale of medicines, when the medicines are available at lesser and heavily discounted prices in the open market from the medical shops, retailers, dealers and distributors duly licensed and regulated by the Drug Control Department of state and central governments". The advocate stated…
