The Supreme Court, hearing a plea seeking quashing of licenses of two cervical cancer vaccines, on Wednesday sought to know whether it could venture into the executive’s domain by looking into a Parliamentary Standing Committee report on the vaccines and clinical trials.
A bench, headed by Justice Dipak Misra, sought the assistance of parties on the legal question and also asked the government to produce records to show the action it has taken on the recommendations of the 81st report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare.
The recommendations dealt with the issue of drugs relating to Human Papilloma Virus vaccine and the parliamentary panel’s criticism on the manner in which the vaccines were introduced and administered on minor girls in India. The bench has now posted the matter for further hearing on January 20 next year. The two drugs in question are Gardasil and Cervarix, manufactured by Merck Sharpe and GlaxoSmithKline respectively.