Plea on revival of vaccine PSUs: SC seeks Centre's reply

One-liner: The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Centre to file a reply on a plea seeking to revive the vaccine public sector units and utilise their full production capabilities by placement of purchase orders.

Bench direction: A bench asked the Centre to respond to the plea within four weeks after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said notice is not needed in the matter as this would be in the domain of policy decision.

• The top court was hearing a plea for  functional autonomy to vaccine public sector units and put these PSUs to use especially after public funds were spent to make them Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) compliant
• It stated no PSUs should be excluded from producing any vaccine as long as quality and affordability are ensured

Background: Referring to a 2016 order of the top court, in which the govt had agreed to take action to revive the PSUs, the plea said the vaccine manufacturing units continued to languish despite their modernisation and capacity expansion.

Source: PTI