Mumbai, Jun 21 (PTI) A Mumbai court has granted bail to a man who was in jail for the past three years for allegedly selling fake medicines during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Additional Sessions Judge (Dindoshi court) Shrikant Bhosale, in the order passed on June 19, said the accused Sudeep Mukherjee was in jail since 2021 and the trial in the case had not even commenced.
Considering the old pendency, there is no possibility that in the near future the trial would conclude, the judge said in the order, details of which were made available on Friday.
As per police, Mukherjee bought fake medicine from Uttar Pradesh based firm ABM Labs Pvt Ltd and then sold it by pasting stickers of Max Relief Healthcare, which is also a bogus company.
While ‘Favipiravir Tablets 400 mg’ was printed on the package, the medicine inside did not contain the drugs mentioned, police said.
The accused, after putting his own label, distributed the drugs amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the prosecution said.
This was Mukerjee’s third attempt to seek bail. His earlier applications were rejected by the same court.
In his latest plea, he sought bail on parity claiming a co-accused with a similar role was granted bail by Bombay High Court.
After hearing the arguments, the court ruled there is change in circumstances to entertain the subsequent bail application.
Hence, the accused is entitled for bail on the same condition as imposed by the HC while granting bail to the other accused in the case, the court said. PTI AVI BNM
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