Supreme Court reserves order on why most medicines stay outside price control

27 October 2026

A Bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta has reserved its order in Kishan Chand Jain v. Ethics and Medical Registration Board, a writ petition on the pricing of medicines. The Court asked the Centre why most medicines are kept outside the stricter price control regime of the Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013 (DPCO), and why retail prices far exceed procurement prices. Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati said there is no legal bar on bringing all medicines under control but the government has chosen a calibrated approach built on the four objectives of the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Policy, 2012. Scheduled medicines are subject to DPCO ceiling prices; makers of non-scheduled medicines fix the initial maximum retail price themselves and face limits only on later increases. The Centre told the Court that scheduled medicines account for 35 per cent of volume and 18 per cent of value, while the petitioner said non-scheduled medicines are about 83 per cent of the market by value. Under Paragraph 19 of the DPCO the government may intervene in extraordinary circumstances in the public interest; it has done so for 106 non-scheduled diabetes and cardiovascular formulations in 2014, for coronary stents and knee implants in 2017, and for trade margins on 42 non-scheduled anti-cancer medicines in 2019. All parties may file written submissions within two weeks.