New Delhi: The Supreme Court of India has taken suo motu cognisance of a critical matter concerning public access to life-saving medicines and the necessity of judicial expediency in cases involving the fundamental Right to Life under Article 21 of the Constitution. A three-judge bench, comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi, and Justice V. Mohana, initiated the pan-India proceedings after expressing serious concern over the prolonged pendency of a related case in the Kerala High Court. The top court issued formal notices to the Union Government while requesting the Chief Justice of the Kerala High Court to ensure an immediate and expeditious disposal of the underlying provincial writ petition.
The apex court’s intervention was prompted by a tragic delay in the Kerala High Court, where a writ petition filed in 2022 by a breast cancer patient from Ernakulam faced adjournment 57 times. The petitioner passed away from the disease before the core legal arguments could be adjudicated. The original petition had sought a Government Use licence under Section 100 of the Patents Act to facilitate the affordable generic production of Ribociclib, a vital cancer treatment drug whose exorbitant pricing rendered it out of reach for the patient. Following her demise, the Kerala High Court recognized the overarching public interest involved and expanded the scope of the proceedings into a broader, independent public interest litigation retitled as In Re Exorbitant Pricing of Life Saving Patented Medicines.
During the Supreme Court hearing, the counsel for the State of Kerala informed the bench that the newly formed state government had recently taken administrative steps to import the drug independently and provide it to needy patients at subsidized rates. Concurrently, Senior Advocate Anand Grover, representing the deceased petitioner’s family, sought intervention to highlight the systemic structural bottlenecks affecting healthcare affordability across the country. He argued that while the Central Government possesses explicit statutory powers under the Patents Act to issue compulsory or government-use licences for prohibitively expensive patented medications, these mechanisms remain drastically underutilized. Admitting the plea to formulate a wider institutional response, Chief Justice Surya Kant noted that he was initially reluctant to interfere with the High Court’s jurisdiction but felt compelled to act due to the extreme delay, emphasizing that disputes directly affecting human life cannot remain languishing on judicial dockets.
