Ahmedabad: An Ahmedabad-based business owner has filed a police complaint after he received counterfeit Azithromycin tablets from a supplier. The tablets were meant for the State health department. The stock involved was 1600 kg pills worth nearly Rs. one and a half crore.

Ashish Vinodara manages his wife owned company, R.H. Enterprises, since 2014. The company handles liasoning for Gujarat government medicine tenders. In 2020-2021 (Corona period), Medizest Pharmaceuticals Pvt Ltd won a tender to supply medicines to the Gujarat government as required. For that, Medizest asked Ashish to supply Azithromycin API. Ashish informed Bhavin Patel, his company’s General Manager, who introduced him to Yash Patel of I.T. Enterprise.

R.H. Enterprises paid Rs. 1.47 crores to I.T Enterprises for 1600 kg of Azithromycin and delivered it to Medizest Pharmaceuticals. On April 3, 2021, Medizest informed Ashish that the material contained zero percent of Azithromycin contents. They attached an analysis report confirming the lack of authenticity.

Ashish confronted Bhavin, who promised to speak with Yash about replacing the material. Despite several reminders, Bhavin and Yash did not deliver the replacement material. Ashish later found that Bhavin and Yash used R.H. Enterprises’ drug license numbers fraudulently in a purchase order to Shalibhadra International to obtain Montelukast API.

Police has registered a case against Bhavin and Yash under IPC Sections 406, 420, 114, 465, 468, and 471. DeshGujarat