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The ongoing controversy surrounding the Andhra Pradesh Pharmacy Council (APPC) has deepened as legal and regulatory scrutiny focuses on the council’s retrospective application of enhanced financial penalties under the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act.
The APPC’s drive to enforce steep ‘fine slabs’ ranging from Rs. 2,500 to Rs. 25,000 as a prerequisite to clear decade-long pending registration renewals is facing intense opposition for violating fundamental constitutional principles. Under Article 20(1) of the Constitution of India, statutory bodies are strictly prohibited from imposing greater penalties than those prescribed at the time an administrative default occurred, safeguarding registered pharmacists from being penalized under revised statutory provisions that were not in force when their non-compliance originally occurred.
State pharmacists confederation president Dr Singanamalla Suman Modi and pharmacy representatives point out that the APPC cannot retroactively apply the Jan Vishwas Act's enhanced penalty structure, which escalates maximum statutory fines up to Rs. 20 lakh, for administrative defaults dating back over ten years. Established statutory rules mandate that any legislative revision enhancing financial liabilities must operate prospectively from its official gazette notification date. By demanding elevated compounding fees as a condition to clear long-pending renewal certificates, the APPC has created an unconstitutional penalty scheme that unfairly burdens registered practitioners seeking routine status updates.
The legal exposure of the APPC is further compounded by its failure to follow proper statutory adjudication procedures during these renewal drives. Under the updated legal framework, enhanced financial penalties under Section 43A can only be levied through designated Adjudicating Officers providing due process, rather than through unilateral notices issued by council staff. Demanding high monetary penalties for historical delays without statutory hearings leaves the APPC's administrative actions vulnerable to being struck down by judicial forums for gross procedural non-compliance.
Beyond the penalty dispute, operational breakdowns within the state Drugs Control Administration (DCA) digital portal have emerged as the root cause behind the massive backlog of unrenewed certificates at the APPC. Severe technical glitches, server crashes, and missing electronic logs on the state DCA portal have left thousands of Registered Pharmacists (RPs) unable to update their professional records or complete routine renewal submissions. Critical career updates, such as resignation submissions and relieving entries, routinely fail to reflect on the central database, trapping practitioners in an administrative bottleneck through no fault of their own.
Speaking to Pharmabiz, Dr Modi said the lack of real-time database synchronization between the state retail Drug License (DL) roster maintained under Form 20 and Form 21 and the APPC registration database has further escalated the crisis. Automated cross-referencing systems on the portal frequently flag legitimate pharmacists for ‘two places working’ or dual employment simply because previous relieving entries were never updated by the system. Pharmacists attempting to upload official relieving orders repeatedly face portal timeouts, turning a routine administrative process into an insurmountable compliance hurdle that has spanned over a decade.
At the same time, experts in pharmaceutical jurisprudence are highlighting a fundamental misinterpretation of statutory law by the APPC regarding Section 42 of the Pharmacy Act, 1948. The council has come under heavy fire for invoking Section 42, which was framed exclusively to prosecute unregistered quacks and unauthorized individuals physically dispensing drugs, against genuine RPs facing administrative renewal delays. Using criminal provisions intended to stop illegal drug compounding against licensed professionals represents an unlawful overreach of statutory authority by the council.
According to Dr Modi, when a registered practitioner holds valid credentials but is absent from a licensed retail outlet or remains listed on multiple premises due to portal delays, the matter falls strictly under Section 36 of the Pharmacy Act read with the Pharmacy Practice Regulations (PPR), 2015. Such cases constitute professional misconduct, requiring formal disciplinary proceedings before the APPC Executive Committee that can result in official warnings or certificate suspension, not monetary fines. By replacing statutory disciplinary hearings with arbitrary monetary fine slabs, the APPC executive management has effectively usurped the authority of Judicial Magistrates and subverted the legal framework governing pharmacy practice in the state, he alleged.
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