Court acquits pharma company in ephedrine case

ISLAMABAD: The Special Court on Saturday acquitted Global Pharmaceuticals in Ephedrine case after the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) gave clean chit to the pharma company after almost five years since it was challaned for the first time in 2013.

Case against Global pharmaceutical was registered on October 10, 2011. The ANF alleged in its challan that Global pharma purchased 500 kg Ephedrine but it only manufactured samples and remaining ephedrine was sold to drug smugglers. Their challan was submitted before the court on July 30, 2013 against Khwaja Asad Yaqub and Khwaja Sajid Yaqub owners of the company.

According to the challan submitted by ANF before the court, Global pharmaceutical shipped their product to Karachi via Ittehad Cargo Service in September and October 2010. Whereas the fact is Ittehad Cargo was shut down in 2009. The distributor of Global Pharmaceutical which distributed company’s product containing ephedrine was Arafat Traders. As per the challan against Global pharmaceutical, the company’s record shows that 215 kg ephedrine was used for Batch number 89 whereas a single section has the capacity of 100 kg only. Similarly, General Manager (GM) Production of Global Pharma Muhamad Shoaib during the investigations informed the ANF authorities that he wasn’t supervising the production of Globodrine tab and he used to report to Director Technical Nadeem Panjtan. However, Nadeem Panjtan during the investigation revealed that all the tablets were manufactured under the supervision of Muhammad Shoaib. The ANF authorities believe there was contradiction in the statement of company’s officials.

Contrary to these allegations levelled against Global Pharma in July 2013, the ANF authorities submitted another challan before the court five years later in September 2018 two months after Hanif Abbasi’s conviction in a similar case and withdrew all the charges against the company. The ANF gave clean chit to the company and said during the investigation Global Pharmaceutical is found not guilty.

When contacted Global Pharma’s CEO Khwaja Asad said it is true that the Special Court has acquitted his company in the Ephedrine case. However, he said he hasn’t received the written judgment and cannot comment on the issue.

To a question how Global pharma was given clean chit after five years as there were serious charges against his company in first challan. Khwaja Asad said, he had submitted several applications before the Director General (DG) ANF to hold an inquiry against his company but they never responded to his requests.

“Later, I approached the court and submitted an application that ANF should hear him and hold an inquiry. The court ordered the ANF to listen to me. During the inquiry ANF found that allegations levelled against my company were wrong and this is the reason they submitted supplementary challan in September 2018 and gave clean chit to my company,” said Khwaja Asad.

When contacted the ANF Spokesperson did not attend this scribe’s call.

The same court awarded life imprisonment sentence to Hanif Abbasi in similar case. However, after getting Abbasi’s conviction in July 2018, the ANF submitted a supplementary challan before the Special Court in September 2018 and exonerated Global Pharmaceuticals from all the charges it levelled in past. The documentary record against the nine companies allegedly involved in selling their ephedrine quota to drug smugglers proves Hanif Abbasi was the only person who has been awarded life imprisonment. The remaining companies have either been acquitted, given clean chit or even haven’t been indicted in this case despite passage of almost nine years.

Two companies (Neutro Pharmaceuticals and Genome Pharma) facing same charges had already been acquitted by ANF court in 2014. Now the Global Pharma is third one which has been acquitted by the court in Ephedrine quota case. The cases against remaining companies are still pending.

Ministry of health had issued ephedrine quota to 99 pharmaceutical firms including 6500 kg to Iberlax and 2500 kg to Danas pharmaceutical. There were 28 pharmaceutical companies which obtained 500 kg or more ephedrine for the first time but the FIR was registered against 9 companies only. The companies against whom FIR was registered include, Danas Pharmaceutical, Berlax Pharmaceutical, Friends Pharmaceutical (Pvt) Ltd Lahore 500 kg, Genome pharmaceutical Pvt Ltd Hattar 250kg, Global pharmaceutical Islamabad 500 kg, Gray’s pharma Islamabad 500 kg, Neutro Pharma Pvt Ltd Lahore 500 kg, Raymond pharmaceutical pvt Lahore 500 kg and Syntex Pharmaceutical, Attock, 500 kg.