Call for expert view on complaints against J&J
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Centre to furnish an expert probe committee’s report on allegations that Johnson & Johnson subsidiary DePuy had supplied faulty hip implants to hundreds of patients in India.
It also sought the government’s response to a public interest petition that accuses the Centre and Mumbai police of inaction in the matter.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked the Centre to “inform the court whether the report of the committee headed by Dr Arun Agarwal, professor of ENT, Maulana Azad Medical College, has been submitted and if so a copy of the said report along with the recommendations/ suggestions contained therein be furnished to the court”.
“List the matter after two weeks by which time the aforesaid process be completed,” the bench, which included Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and K.M. Joseph, added.
Petitioner Arun Kumar Goenka, a Delhi-based social activist, has said through counsel Vivek Narayan Sharma that neither the health ministry nor the Mumbai police, which had registered an FIR in November 2011, has taken any civil or criminal action against the US-based company or its officials.
About 4,700 patients across India received the DePuy implants between 2005 and August 2010, the month the devices were recalled from India.
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