A petition in form of a Public interest has been filed against Jubilant Generics Limited for negligence on their behalf in protecting its employees from Coronavirus, calling for an investigation by the authorities into the matter and action against the company. The plea has been filed as an application to an earlier PIL filed in the Karnataka High Court regarding lapses in State of Karnataka to contain the spread of Covid-19.
The petitioner in the current petition is GR Mohan, a resident of Bengaluru. The respondent is Jubilant Generics Limited, which is a pharmaceutical company, a part of the Jubilant Bhartia Group, which has a strong presence in diverse sectors like pharmaceuticals, life sciences, food service, etc.
The petition has been filed after employees of the Company’s plant in Mysore district tested positive for COVID 19, along with people they have come in contact with, making the total number of infected people more than 25. The employees or their contacts have no prior history of travel or coming in contact of an infected person.
According to the petitioner’s Counsel, the company has been negligent and has breached trust, as they imported raw materials from China even though there was a risk of spreading the virus. The management should have been more careful and aware about the pandemic.
The suspected source of infection in this case is the import of raw materials from China, and the samples of the import have already been sent for testing.
According to the petition, there has been a careless handling of situation by the owner of the company which has led to spread of the virus to various parts of Mysuru district and other parts of the State of Karnataka.
According to the Company, at its plant located at Mysore, Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients like Azithromycin Dihydrate and Azithromycin Monohydrate which are required for COVID-19 treatment making it important for the company to continue its production to help fight the pandemic.
The first positive case of COVID-19 was found in the Company on March 26th, and An investigation was started to trace the source of his infection, as he had no travel history. According to the Company, the said infected person had stopped coming to the plant after March 20th, and he was put under medical supervision at a government hospital, and according to the hospital, he has been doing well.
However other cases in the same district came up, mainly people who had come in contact with these employees, due to which the authorities had to ask the staff people, including more than 1000 people to be under strict home quarantine.
According to the health officer of the concerned district, the import of chemicals from China, visits of foreign delegates to the Company’s campus, and all other possible causes of the virus outbreak are being investigated, and the CCTV footages, Company records, etc are being looked into. The results of the samples are being awaited.
According to the Company, the raw materials imported from China for which samples have been taken had all taken three weeks to reach the plant in Mysore by sea, and were not imported in cold conditions. The Company has already submitted the CCTV footage, company records, travel history and details of visitors to the authorities.
The case is likely to be listed before the Court next week.
-India Legal Bureau