HC quashes appointment of pharma council registrar

Raipur: The Chhattisgarh high court has quashed the appointment of the registrar of the Chhattisgarh State Pharmacy Council, ruling that the State government lacks the statutory competence to make the appointment directly. Justice Parth Prateem Sahu, presiding over a single bench on March 3, held that under the Pharmacy Act 1948, the power to appoint a registrar vests with the Council, subject to previous sanction from the government. The petitioner, Dr Rakesh Gupta, had challenged the March 2024 order through which Ashwani Gurdekar, a storekeeper at state-run Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar Memorial Hospital, was given charge as registrar. Justice Sahu said, "The expression ‘with the previous sanction of the state government' indicates that the role of the state government is supervisory in nature and not that of the appointing authority."