LAHORE: 1,870 CASES PENDING WITH FOUR DRUG COURTS

LAHORE: At least 1,870 cases are pending with four drug courts functioning
in the province for the last one year. The cases are referred to them by the
Provincial Quality Control Board (PQCB) after scrutinizing reports of drug
inspectors and the government analyst.

The cases generally sent to the drug courts are about the stock of spurious,
substandard, adulterated and misbranded drugs, running of medical stores
without a proper license, sale of medicines without warranty and in the
absence of qualified persons. The stock of expired drugs, government
property, physicians' samples, unregistered drugs and improper storage
conditions are other offences being prosecuted by the drug courts.

During the first nine months of their establishment, the four drug courts
functioning in Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad and Gujranwala, have tried
1,212 medical store owners and imposed a fine of Rs10.029 million.

In most cases the courts had also convicted medical store owners with
detention in the court till its rising.

The performance data of the fifth drug court in Multan, which deals with
cases of Multan, Dera Ghazi Khan and Bahawalpur divisions, is not available
with the Punjab health department. Officials claim that the Multan drug
court staff had never informed the health department about its performance
despite repeated requests.

The court officials say that the court was established by the federal
government and they were not under any obligation to inform the health
department about its performance.

It is learnt that there are 13,500 medical stores in the Punjab of which 70
per cent are situated in urban areas of the province. In Lahore district
alone there are 3,500 medical shops.

>From October 1999 to April 2000, drug inspectors inspected 18,179 medical
stores and of them sealed 1,471. The drug inspectors referred 3,026 cases to
the PQCB. During the same period, the PQCB issued 3,240 show cause notices
and disposed of 3,945 cases. It sent 2,796 cases to relevant drug courts for
prosecution.

The Lahore drug court chaired by Mian Abdul Khaliq, during its first
nine-month working, has tried and convicted 374 people, disposed of 397
cases and imposed a fine of Rs1.395 million. At least 484 cases are still
pending with the court.

The Rawalpindi drug court chaired by Altaf Elahi Sheikh has decided around
150 cases and imposed a fine of Rs1.65 million. At least 227 cases are
pending with the court.

The Faisalabad drug court chaired by Advocate Zaigham Abbas deals with the
cases relating to Faisalabad and Sargodha divisions. The court has decided
387 cases and imposed a fine of Rs4.119 million. At least 738 cases are
pending with it.

The drug court for Gujranwala is chaired by district and session judge
Parvaiz Chawla and is operating in Lahore.

According to the available data, the court has decided 278 cases in four
months (March, May, June and July) and imposed a fine of Rs2.865 million. At
least 421 cases are still pending with it.

The comparison of cases tried and fines imposed show that the drug court for
Gujranwala had shown a strict stance and imposed maximum fines for violating
the Drugs Act 1976.

A health department official claimed that the offence rate in Gujranwala had
sharply declined and a number of medical store owners had even abandoned
their business.

With regard to the major plenty, an official said the only drug court in
Lahore before September 1999, had awarded eight months jail to a person and
imposed a fine of Rs35,000. It may be mentioned that the Punjab government
had established three new drug courts at Rawalpindi, Faisalabad and Lahore
(for Gujranwala division) in September 1999. Earlier, there was only one
court in Lahore for the whole Punjab which used to function only for one day
in a week. This court remained non-functional from July 1995 to March 1997
as the federal government did not appoint its chairman.

On the recommendation of the Punjab government, the federal government
established one more court in Multan to dispose of increasing number of
cases being referred by the PQCB. The Shahbaz Sharif government established
three more courts in Rawalpindi, Faisalabad and Gujranwala (at Lahore) for
early disposal of cases.

It is learnt that another drug court was established in Bahawalpur which is
still non-functional as the federal government has yet not appointed its
chairman. The budget for the court was approved some two years ago.

Talking to Dawn, a senior health department official said performance of the
operative courts was being hampered seriously as their technical members and
ministerial staff had yet not been appointed due to a ban on recruitment.
Currently, technical members appointed on temporary basis are working with
the courts. They sometimes did not attend courts, which results in lack of
quorum. "This situation has hampered the courts' working and the disposal
rate of the cases is quite slow," he said.

Sources say some drug courts' chairmen are deciding cases even in the
absence of technical members and getting their signatures on decisions
afterwards. It may be mentioned that the posts of technical members and
their budget has already been sanctioned which continues to lapse in the
absence of permanent technical members.

The official also said that there was no law to control unani, herbal,
homoeopathic medicines and food supplements. He claimed that a large number
of fake preparations resembling brands of allopathic medicines were freely
available in the market under the cover of unani, herbal, homoeopathic
medicines and food supplements. He said these drugs could be taken as
spurious drugs.