Consumer welfare motive behind licence cancellation of J&J: Maha govt to HC

The Maharashtra government on Thursday told the Bombay High Court it had cancelled the licence of Johnson amp Johnson Pvt Ltd JampJ to manufacture baby powder at its plant in suburban Mulund keeping in mind the welfare and health of consumersThe government made the submission before a twojudge bench in an affidavit submitted in response to a petition filed by the multinational company challenging two official orders one dated September 15 cancelling the manufacturing licence and the other of September 20 ordering JampJ to immediately stop manufacturing and sale of its baby powderThe orders were passed by the Joint Commissioner and Licensing Authority of the state Food and Drug Administration FDAThe government based its orders on a report of the Central Drug Laboratory CDL which found the powder contained higher pH level than prescribed which can adversely affect the skin of babiesAlso read Mumbai Two killed two injured in major accident on WEH near GoregaonThe pH is a measure of how acidic or basic a substance or solution isIn the affidavit the government said it would be a gross failure on their part if they failed to enforce the statutory provisions of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act and Rules meant to safeguard the health of peopleA bench of Justices S V Gangapurwala and S G Dige on Thursday sought to know from the government if it had tested more samples from the same batch of baby powder or from any other batch before taking a decision to cancel the licenceAdditional government pleader Milind More said he would take instructions from the state on the same following which the court posted the matter for further hearing on November 14The government affidavit said the health and welfare of peopleconsumers is of paramount importanceIt is statutory duty apart from moral responsibilities of the petitioner JampJ to manufacture and supply the product that are absolutely safe for the consumers particularly infant babies in this case it saidAs per the affidavit the samples sent for laboratory testing were reported to be not of standard quality as the pH value was of 842The affidavit refuted claims by Johnson amp Johnson which is engaged in manufacture and sale of a range of products in the healthcare field that pH values did not impact the health of the consumerAction by the FDA authorities is more concerned with public health at large and nothing else matters when it comes to public health at large the document addedThe company in its plea said 14 random batches of February March and September 2022 of the powder were tested by an independent public testing laboratory and all were found to be well within the prescribed pH valueThe MNC said it has been making the baby powder in its Mulund plant for the last 57 years and its licence was renewed in January 2020The company also said due to the licence revocation it suffered a daily loss of Rs 25 crore based on market value of goods soldThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever