Parliamentary standing committee on health and family welfare, Indian Politician

New Delhi, Feb 22 The Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed concern at freebies - including gold coins, fridges, LCD TVs, and funding international trips for vacations -offered by pharmaceutical companies to manipulate doctors' prescriptions and to recommend drugs produced by them.A bench of Justices U.U. Lalit and S Ravindra Bhat said: "It is a matter of great public importance and concern, when it is demonstrated that a doctor's prescription can be manipulated, and driven by the motive to avail the freebies offered to them by pharmaceutical companies, ranging from gifts such as gold coins, fridges and LCD TVs to funding international trips for vacations or to attend medical conferences."Justice Bhat, who authored the judgment on behalf of the bench, said freebies are technically not 'free' - the cost of supplying such freebies is usually factored into the drug, driving prices up, thus creating a perpetual publicly injurious cycle.The bench added that the threat of prescribing medication that is significantly marked up, over effective generic counterparts in lieu of such a quid pro quo exchange was taken cognisance of by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare.It noted that medical practitioners have a quasi-fiduciary relationship with their patients. "A doctor's prescription is considered the final word on the medication to be availed by the patient, even if the cost of such medication is unaffordable or barely within the economic reach of the patient - such is the level of trust reposed in doctors," said the top court.The bench added that it is also a settled principle of law that no court will lend its aid to a party that roots its cause of action in an immoral or illegal act meaning that none should be allowed to profit from any wrongdoing coupled with the fact that statutory regimes should be coherent and not self-defeating. "Doctors and pharmacists being complementary and supplementary to each other in the medical profession, a comprehensive view must be adopted to regulate their conduct in view of the contemporary statutory regimes and regulations," said Justice Bhat.The bench said the conceded participation of the assessee - the provider or donor- was plainly prohibited, as far as their receipt by the medical practitioners was concerned. "That medical practitioners were forbidden from accepting such gifts, or 'freebies' was no less a prohibition on the part of their giver, or donor," it added.The apex court made these observations while dismissing an appeal filed by Apex Laboratories Pvt Ltd challenging a Madras High Court verdict, declining to interfere with the Income Tax authorities' decision against the firm to claim benefit of business expenditure towards gifting freebies to medical practitioners for creating awareness about health supplement 'Zincovit'.It said the denial of the tax benefit cannot be construed as penalising the assessee pharmaceutical company and only its participation in what is plainly an action prohibited by law, precludes the assessee from claiming it as a deductible expenditure."The incentives (or 'freebies') given by Apex, to the doctors, had a direct result of exposing the recipients to the odium of sanctions, leading to a ban on their practice of medicine. Those sanctions are mandated by law, as they are embodied in the code of conduct and ethics, which are normative, and have legally binding effect.""Pharmaceutical companies' gifting freebies to doctors, etc. is clearly 'prohibited by law', and not allowed to be claimed as a deduction under Section 37(1). Doing so would wholly undermine public policy. The well-established principle of interpretation of taxing statutes - that they need to be interpreted strictly - cannot sustain when it results in an absurdity contrary to the intentions of the Parliament."Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor

Home

City

Latest News

Cricket

LT Premium

National

International

Maharashtra

Opinions

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar

Nagpur

Entertainment

Photos

Business

Technology

Sports

Lifestyle

Social Viral

Lokmat Games

Health

Pahalgam Terror Attack

Tahawwur Rana

IPL 2025

CM Devendra Fadnavis

Mumbai Local

Weather Update

Parliamentary Standing Committee On Health And Family WelfareFOLLOW

Parliamentary standing committee on health and family welfare, Latest News

Politics :Major changes in parl panel reconstitution, Congress set to lose big

Major changes are expected as the Parliamentary Standing Committees are all set to be reconstituted in the coming few days. ...

Politics :KCR, Akhilesh deliberate on 'national politics', other issues

New Delhi, July 29 In the national capital on a 3-day visit, Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao ... ...

Politics :Prez poll: Committee formed to campaign for Yashwant Sinha

New Delhi, June 27 Hours after nomination was filed by Yashwant Sinha on Monday as the joint Opposition ... ...

Politics :SP Member seeks exemption of primary teachers from mid-day meal programmes

New Delhi, March 25 Samajwadi Party Member Ram Gopal Yadav on Friday sought exemption of primary school teachers ... ...

Health :'Gold coins, TVs': SC concerned on pharma firms offering freebies to doctors

New Delhi, Feb 22 The Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed concern at freebies - including gold coins, fridges, ... ...