The Supreme Court on Tuesday pressed the Centre to ensure that procedures under the Uniform Code for Pharmaceuticals Marketing Practices (UCPMP) are robust enough for ordinary consumers to easily report unethical conduct by drug companies and receive effective remedies.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta said the system must be designed so that “every person or the consumer who is cheated” has clear recourse against erring pharmaceutical firms. The court was hearing a petition alleging widespread unethical marketing practices in the pharmaceutical sector and seeking stronger legal safeguards.

The judges questioned why the UCPMP, introduced earlier this year, does not already contain a user-friendly complaint mechanism. “If you have brought out a code, why should that code

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