During the hearing of a case concerning the regulation of prices of life-saving and essential medicines, the Supreme Court of India has expressed strong shock and condemnation, pointing to the unfair profiteering by pharmaceutical companies and retailers. These sharp remarks were made by the judges when a public interest petition filed by advocate Kishan Chand Jain came up for hearing before a bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta. During the hearing, the court pointed out that an essential medicine for cancer treatment was supplied to a retailer for ₹2,700, while its maximum retail price was printed as ₹27,000 and sold accordingly. Commenting on this, Justice Sandeep Mehta said, "What else is it but daylight robbery when a medicine supplied by the manufacturer for ₹2,700 is sold at ten times the price with an MRP of ₹27,000 printed on it? This is blatant exploitation of patients. Poor people are being forced to sell their homes and jewelry to buy life-saving medicines. Why are the government authorities and bodies responsible for regulating this remaining silent?" He raised a series of questions.
On the petitioner’s side, it was stated that the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority fixes the maximum price only for about 1,000 drug formulations listed in Schedule 1 under the Drug Price Control Order (DPCO 2013).

However, there are no rules to regulate the initial price of the 82% of non-scheduled drugs in the market. As a result, companies can arbitrarily set huge profit margins," it was alleged.
“Corporate hospitals are making huge profits by selling medicines to patients at such inflated maximum MRP prices. Moreover, even in treatments provided under government insurance schemes like ‘Ayushman Bharat,’ government funds are reimbursed based on these inflated MRP amounts, making this a major irregularity carried out with the public’s tax money,” the judges expressed concern.
If the prices of all medicines are properly regulated, this huge price difference between branded and generic medicines would automatically come down, and if medicines are not available at Jan Aushadhi centres, where else would an ordinary patient go, the court asked.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing on behalf of the Indian Drug Manufacturers Association, argued that pharmaceutical companies alone are not benefiting from this profit, and that the price increase occurs in the chain of distributors and hospitals. Additional Solicitor General K.M. Nataraj, appearing for the Central Government, said, “The government is approaching this not as an adversarial case, but with the aim of reforming the system.” Following this, the Supreme Court has adjourned the hearing of the case to September 29 to hear detailed arguments from the Central Government and pharmaceutical companies.
