New Delhi, August 19
The Delhi High Court today referred to a larger Bench the writ petition seeking a high level investigation into the supply of substandard and outdated HIV/AIDS medical kits by Monozyme India Limited.

Filed here on August 11 by Dr Kunal Shah, an HIV/AIDS medical specialist based in Ohio, USA, the petition seeks the National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) to come out with the truth on the circulation of outdated medical kits, at the cost of lives of HIV infected people.

While seeking answers to why NACO has, since April this year, again tied up with Monozyme for the supply of HIV medical kits, the petitioner has sought the AIDS control body under the health ministry to further apologise for contending that the Centre for Disaster Control (CDC) in the USA has approved the kits in question.

The petitioner in his plea before the high court has pleaded that the CDC, in a communication with the World Bank (which funds AIDS control programmes in India), clarified that they had nothing to do with the kits.

NACO, which has been in the dock since 2006 when two renowned medical establishments of Mumbai, complained to it about the supply of substandard kits by Monozyme, had earlier in a press release stated that the CDC had approved the kits. Delhi High Court’s Justice G.S. Sistani, while taking up the petition today, referred it to a larger Bench, while observing that the issue was of great public importance.

The matter came to life two years ago when Kem Hospital and GS Hospital of Mumbai complained to NACO about the use of outdated HIV medical kits, to the detriment of infected people. The hospitals at that time alleged that low quality kits were being passed off as correct, spreading infection in the country.