The Supreme Court of India has expressed strong disapproval over the exorbitant pricing of essential medicines, particularly highlighting a cancer drug sold to retailers for ₹2,700 but carrying a Maximum Retail Price (MRP) of ₹27,000.
Court Slams 'Daylight Robbery' on Patients
During the hearing of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking mandatory generic drug prescriptions and price controls on life-saving medicines, a bench comprising Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta termed the 10-fold price difference as "absolute rampage and carnage and broad daylight dacoity with the patients." The justices questioned how patients could be cheated so brazenly.
The court also raised concerns about the silence of regulatory authorities on this issue, suggesting that reasons for their inaction "need not be spelled out."
Concerns Beyond Direct Patient Impact
Beyond the direct impact on patients, the bench flagged another critical issue: essential and life-saving medicines being procured under the government's Ayushman Bharat scheme at these "seriously inflated" MRPs. This practice, the court observed, constitutes a "fraud on taxpayers" who ultimately bear the cost of these overpriced drugs through public funds.
A key point of contention for the court was the significant disparity between the Price to Retailer (PTR) and the MRP of various essential and life-saving medicines.
The Regulatory Gap: Scheduled vs. Non-Scheduled Drugs
Petitioner Kishan Chand Jain informed the court that the Drug Price Control Order (DPCO) of 2013 only allows the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) to fix ceiling prices for approximately 1,000 "scheduled" drugs. This leaves a vast majority, nearly 82 percent, of medicines in the market as non-scheduled drugs, thereby creating a loophole that permits such massive price differences between their production cost and final retail price.
The matter has been adjourned, with further proceedings scheduled for September 29.