NE LEGAL BUREAU
AHMEDABAD, JULY 7
Congress leader Paresh Dhanani on Wednesday told the Gujarat High Court that the inquiry being conducted by the state’s Food and Drugs Control Administration (FDCA) into the issue of distribution of Remdesivir injections from the BJP office in Surat in April was “perfunctory, premeditated and peripheral with its conclusion apparent”.
Dhanani said this in his rejoinder to the affidavits submitted earlier by BJP’s state unit chief C R Paatil, MLA Harsh Sanghavi, and FDCA Commissioner H G Koshia. He filed the rejoinder in the division bench of Chief Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Biren Vaishnav.
The court was hearing a PIL filed by Dhanani over the distribution of Remdesivir injections from the BJP office in Surat when COVID-19 cases had peaked in April.
Dhanani said that claims made by Sanghavi over distribution of Remdesivir injection vials between April 10-12 in Surat and Navsari are false and frivolous, a ‘cock and bull story’ aimed at misleading the court.
The FDCA has conducted ‘perfunctory, premeditated and peripheral inquiry inconsistent with the statutory obligation and devoid of statutory duties and functions,’ he said, adding that no independent inquiry has been carried out so far in the matter.
The inquiry is politically motivated and is completely biased and its conclusion apparent, he said.
The PIL will next come up for hearing on August 8.
In its affidavit, the FDCA had told the court that as per the preliminary inquiry, such distribution had taken place, but prima facie no illegalities have been found yet and the inquiry is still pending.
Dhanani, who is the Leader of Opposition in the state Legislative Assembly, argued that he approached the court against the event after a wide range of grievances and hue and cry against such private and political initiative to provide Remdesivir injections by the president of a political party in power.
In his reply, Paatil had told the court that the PIL was not maintainable as its real purpose was to malign him and BJP MLA Sanghavi, also a respondent in the case. Sanghavi, on the other hand, stated that over 2,500 vials of injections were made available to the needy persons by the BJP on compassionate and humanitarian grounds.
In his PIL, Dhanani said the distribution of the injection was illegal and violated the provisions of Drugs and Cosmetics Act, Pharmacy Act, and Drugs Control Act, and has sought the court’s direction for an expert committee of ‘highly distinguished and neutral persons’ to inquire into it.
