Jabalpur: The Madhya Pradesh High Court on Thursday deferred the hearing on the bail plea of a doctor held in connection with the death of 24 children, allegedly caused by consumption of a now-banned toxic cough syrup in Chhindwara and Betul districts, due to paucity of time.
The accused physician from Chhindwara, Dr Praveen Soni, who prescribed the contaminated cough syrup ‘Coldrif’ to most of the ailing kids, has been arrested for alleged negligence in connection with the child deaths.
Soni’s bail plea was listed before a single bench of Justice Pramod Kumar Agrawal, but it could not be taken up for hearing due to lack of time, his counsel Pawan Shukla informed.
It is likely to be heard on Friday, Shukla told PTI.
As per officials, 22 children in Chhindwara and two in Betul died after consuming the Coldrif cough syrup manufactured by a private pharmaceutical firm whose owner was arrested from Tamil Nadu last week.
Most of the deceased children in Chhindwara had been prescribed the syrup by Soni. The kids, mostly under the age of five, died due to suspected kidney failure following the consumption of the adulterated cough syrup.
Madhya Pradesh authorities reported that one sample of Coldrif had 48.6 per cent of diethylene glycol, a toxic substance found in industrial solvents, far exceeding the 0.1% permissible limit.
Following the deaths, the Parasia police in Chhindwara district registered a case against the syrup’s manufacturer, Sresan Pharma, its owner G Ranganathan, Soni, and others under relevant sections of the BNS.
The doctor moved the HC after the district court rejected his bail plea, citing the serious nature of the case.
In his plea before the HC, Soni argued police arrested him without obtaining prior permission from the medical board, a necessary requirement for action against a registered doctor.
The physician maintained he had prescribed the syrup in good faith and pointed out he was neither involved in the medicine’s production nor its sale.
The doctor contended that the licence to manufacture and market the cough syrup had been issued to the company by competent government authorities.
