‘Pay Tk 15 lakh to each victim family’

The High Court yesterday directed the government to constitute an independent national committee to prevent medicine adulteration in the full text of a verdict.

"Receiving all types of treatment facilities without any cost is a fundamental right of citizens as enshrined in the constitution," the HC bench of Justice Md Ashraful Kamal and Justice Razik-Al-Jalil observed in the full-text verdict.

In the judgement, the bench ordered the Directorate General of Drug Administration to pay Tk 15 lakh each to families of 104 children who died after taking toxic paracetamol syrup in 1991 and 2009.

It asked the DGDA to pay the victims' families first and then collect the money from the companies or individuals responsible for producing the syrup.

HC also ordered the authorities concerned to take action against the companies and individuals responsible for manufacturing the toxic syrup under section 25(C) of the Special Powers Act, 1974.

On June 2 last year, HC delivered the verdict following a petition filed by Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh in 2010 seeking necessary directives.

The petitioner's lawyer Manzill Murshid said 76 children died in 1991 and 28  in 2009 after consuming toxic paracetamol syrup.