The Supreme Court in the case Chouksey College of Pharmacy vs Pharmacy Council of India and connected cases observed and passed an interim order to direct the Pharmacy Council of India to process applications of colleges which had challenged imposition of a moratorium issued by PCI on opening of new pharmacy colleges for a period of five years before the High Courts with effect from the academic year 2020-21.
no final decision regarding grant of approval or non-approval shall be taken till the outcome of the present petitions, the bench directed.
The Chhattisgarh High Court passed an interim order against the moratorium and The High Court of Delhi and Karnataka set aside the ban.
challenging orders passed by Karnataka and Delhi High Court, while clarifying that two Special Leave Petition will be treated as the lead matters and the bench further directed the parties that by 22.07.2022, to complete their pleadings
The bench also observed the batch of applications being filled by the respondent Colleges seeking reliefs including permission from the academic year 2022 – 2023 to establish their Pharmacy colleges and The Applicant should also be granted with necessary approval.
The application system has now been started again, which was initially closed. The SG suggested that while that may continue, the court should not pass any directions mandating the processing of the applications, submitted by SG pursuant to High Court’s Interim Order.
It was submitted by Tushar Mehta, appearing for PCL that a five-year moratorium was imposed which is under challenge, due to the mushrooming of pharmacy colleges.
It will take 4-6 months, if the PCI were to start processing, inspection and other administrative act as the year 2022 will anyway be lost. Furthermore, it was stated by SG that the colleges’ concern may be that they will lose one year.
appearing for some of the respondent colleges, Senior Advocate Devadatt Kamat submitted that the applications of theses colleges be processed as they have already lost two years. Furthermore, and three constitutional courts have held against the moratorium and these are appeals from final orders of High Court.
the colleges had challenged the 5-yr ban order on multiple grounds and the same being outside the purview and powers delegated by the Pharmacy Council of India Act. Thereafter The PCI has taken this decision after getting a go-ahead from the Department of Health, GOI in the said regard.
The bench comprising of Justice BR Gavai and the Justice Hima Kohli observed and while considering a batch of petitions challenging orders passed by High Courts of Delhi, Chattisgarh and Karnataka, the court issued an interim order in relation to the moratorium issued by the Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) on opening new colleges for 5 years.
The bench further stated that the next hearing will be on July 26.