The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the petitioner to withdraw his plea filed seeking directions restricting the sale of counterfeit vaccine for Covid-19 and framing of guidelines under the Disaster Management Act, 2005. The bench comprising Chief Justice S.A. Bobde, Justices A.S. Bopanna and V. Ramasubramanian asked the petitioner to make out a case by filing a fresh plea with concrete facts.
The plea had been filed by Advocate Vishal Tiwari who argued that criminal organisations may cause a threat to public health and safety by circulating fake and counterfeit Covid-19 vaccines. The plea stated, “Interpol has issued a warning that with the invention of corona vaccine there will be a danger arise of counterfeit vaccine, which several criminal organization may carry out and mostly through online mode.”
The plea highlighted that online fraud has become regular criminal act and can be committed to dupe the innocent.
“It (India) can be a big place of profit for criminal organizations and companies as it can be made a market for selling counterfeit and fake corona vaccine. Such organizations adopt a very smart technique of publicity which can attract several innocent citizens of our nation for buying the vaccine. Online fraud has become regular criminal act committed and our nation is also facing this challenge, ” the plea stated.
The vaccination drive is currently on in the country with two indigenous vaccines, Covishield and Covaxin, manufactured by Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech respectively.
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