PESHAWAR, Oct 22: The Peshawar High Court on Tuesday transferred the case about purchase of substandard hepatitis-C injections and vaccines in the province from the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) to the National Accountability Bureau for investigation.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Asadullah Khan Chamkani observed that the pharmaceutical company, which manufactured and supplied the injection, was based in Punjab, an area beyond the ACE jurisdiction and therefore, it would be appropriate to transfer the case to NAB.

The bench directed the director general of NAB, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to conduct further proceedings in this case and submit fortnight reports to the high court about the progress until a reference was filed before the competent court.

The court directed ACE to handover all relevant record and evidence in this case.

Peshawar High Court Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan had taken suo moto notice of the issue in Feb and had issued directives to the ACE director to conduct an inquiry in this respect.

ACE has registered the case under sections 409, 419, 420, 468, 471, 120-B, 109 of Pakistan Penal Code and Sections5(2) of Prevention of Corruption Act.

Four officials of health department, former director general Mohammad Ali Chohan, then director general Dr Sharif Ahmad Khan, Provincial Hepatitis Control Programme chief Dr Ghulam Subhani and storekeeper Mubarak Shah, were arrested in the case.

However, they all were later freed on bail.

The bench was hearing several cases related to provision of spurious and counterfeit drugs by the companies, corruption in purchase of drugs and equipment for the hospitals, non-regulation of the private clinical laboratories, amendments in the Drug Act, etc.

The bench directed the director general of NAB to constitute a team of expert investigators and the said team should also look into other health related issues falling in its jurisdiction including supply of spurious and counterfeit drugs to the market, substandard testing laboratories and involvement of officials of provincial and federal health departments in wrong doings.

The court disposed of the case related to substandard hepatitis vaccines.

The bench observed that drug mafia was operating in the province, while sale of spurious drugs to the poor people was on the rise here.

The chief justice regretted that the court had been striving to check activi-ties of the people dealing in spurious drugs for two years but could not achieve the desired results as the latter were very influential.

The chief justice said it was unfortunate that the court had issued repeated directives to the federal government to amend the Drug Act, 1976 to introduce stringent punishment for the markers and marketers of spurious drugs but no action had so far been taken.

Deputy Attorney General Mohammad Iqbal Mohmand said recently, a meeting was convened by the federal ministry for coordination regarding amendments in the Drug Act, but it was not attended by representatives of Balochistan and Sindh province. He added that soon another meeting would be convened.

The bench observed that the Drug Act had several loopholes and its benefit always went to the accused.

The chief justice observed that pharmaceutical companies had been paying bribes to the officials of regulatory authority for issuance of licenses for drugs as well as shif ting a drug from controlled list of prices to the de-controlled list.

The chief justice observed that drug manufacturing and regulation became a provincial subject through the Constitution (Eighteenth Amendment) Act, 2010 but the province surrendered its legislative power to the federal government in this regard.