The Maha Vikas Aghadi government has directed Maharashtra police to file a case against the former chief minister of the state, Devendra Fadnavis in connection with illegal possession of remdesivir vials worth 4.75 crores.
The underhand deed was caught while the remdesivir vials (the antiviral drug) were secretly being transported by a Gujarat Company at midnight.
While populous Maharashtra is battling the insidious invasion of SARS-CoV-2 which especially is hitting the crowded financial capital of India viciously, there is a shortage of vaccines, remdesivir, oxygen, and hospital beds due to the overwhelming number of patients that need to be admitted.
In light of the medical emergency, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray recently urgently called the Prime Minister’s office requesting more supply of remdesivir and oxygen, it appears he was curtly informed that the Prime Minister was busy in Bengal campaigning and would get back to him when he returned.
Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray was allegedly upset by this response. In the midst of the frightening rise of cases and deaths, it was discovered that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and former chief minister of Maharastra Devendra Fadnavis trying to procure the remdesivir drug from a firm in Daman.
The Maharashtra Police on April 17th claimed that they were probing a case of alleged ‘illegal’ export of remdesivir by Bruck Pharma, for which, the Maharashtra BJP later claimed that permission was obtained by the party to purchase it to be donated to the Maharashtra government.
The Maharashtra police had “specific information about stocking a large quantity (60,000 vials) of remdesevir by a pharmaceutical company” which could not be exported due to a present ban by the Government of India on the export of remdesevir.
The director of this pharmaceutical company was called by BKC Police Station for inquiry while a team from the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) was also present at BKC Police Station. It appears that the Commissioner and Joint Commissioner, FDA, were also aware of this.
On April 17th in the late night, Devendra Fadanvis, Praveen Darekar, MLA Parag Alavani, and Prasad Lad arrived at the BKC police station.
On explaining why he had possession of remdesevir, Mr. Fadnavis informed the police that permission was taken from Commissioner FDA to donate the stock of remdesevir vials to the Maharashtra government, as remdesevir stocked for export cannot be diverted to the domestic market without permission from the Drugs Controller General of India (DGCI) or FDA.”
However, the police state that this was never communicated with the police
They said, “Mumbai Police acted in good faith. The director of the pharmaceutical company was called for an inquiry in order to trace and seize a large quantity i.e. 60,000 vials, of the life-saving medicine remdesevir, based on a specific input verified by facts.”
Mr. Fadnavis and the other leaders as well as the director of the pharma company was let off after being told he had to be present for inquiry whenever needed in the future.
Since there was a shortage of the badly needed remdesivir and black marketing is carried on heavily during the COVID surge, police officers are particularly extremely vigilant on the moves of the drug. The police said, “We had got information about this storage facility. Acting in good faith, we only wanted to verify the inputs. He (supplier) was called for an inquiry, it wasn’t an arrest.”
However, in a new development in light of the series on events, the MVA government has directed Maharashtra police to file a case against the former chief minister of the state, Devendra Fadnavis in connection with illegal possession of remdesivir vials, the antiviral drug, worth 4.75 crores