ISLAMABAD: In a loud and clear message Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar has said he has no political ambitions or agenda to follow.

“I swear to God that I have no political agenda but what I want or wish to see is the availability of clean drinking water, basic health facilities and food to the people of Pakistan,” the chief justice observed while heading a three-judge Supreme Court bench on Tuesday.

The bench had taken up a suo motu case about increase in prices of drugs.

Justice Nisar says SC has no option but to hear political cases too

It was initiated by former chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

During one of the hearings, on April 29, 2014, the Drugs Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) had accused the manufacturers and importers of medicines of dragging the authority to courts which had no jurisdiction to decide such matters under the Drugs Act 1976.

Deputy Attorney General Sajid Ilyas Bhatti had then submitted a report on behalf of the DRAP requesting the apex court to pass a final judgement by holding that only the Islamabad High Court, and not any other civil or high court, had the jurisdiction to decide cases relating to prices of medicines.

“It is my dream that people get medicines at affordable prices — a cause for which the legal fraternity should also come forward in support of the judiciary,” Justice Nisar observed.

“Time has come when we should return or pay back what the country has given to us. Our intentions are clean and fair,” the CJP said, adding that he did not want to adjudicate upon political cases, but the court had no option but to hear and decide such cases too.

The chief justice said the drug manufacturers could not arbitrarily increase prices of medicines, adding that prices should be increased by the DRAP in accordance with the drug policy.

At the same time, the bench said, the DRAP should not allow hike in the price of medicines by keeping it at an affordable level instead of making it a burden on patients. It said the Supreme Court intended to monitor the issue to ensure transparency in the price increase mechanism.

The court regretted that the matters were kept pending at the high court level only to benefit certain drug manufactures and recalled what the DRAP had told the court that when the authority allowed an eight per cent increase in prices, the manufacturers got relief through courts in the shape of higher price increase.

The apex court hinted that it might provide the high courts guidelines to prevent grant of unnecessary stay orders and directed the DRAP to compile a list of companies which did not share data. It was binding upon the drug manufacturers to adhere to DRAP’s policies, the bench observed.

Senior counsel Rasheed A. Razvi, representing one of the pharmaceutical companies, informed the court that drug prices had been increased by 15pc in 2013, but these had been revised and lowered on the directives of the then prime minister.

In its order of Feb 14, the Supreme Court had directed the Sindh High Court to constitute a special division bench to either confirm or vacate the long pending stay orders. It noted that the grant of such orders had caused a massive backlog and cases remained pending for years.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2018