Mumbai : Bombay High Court on Wednesday Johnson & Johnson Pvt. Ltd. can resume production of its baby powder at the Mulund facility, but cannot sell or distribute the product as directed by the Government of Maharashtra. The HC directed the Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration to send four existing samples of baby powder for fresh testing to two government and one private lab, besides collecting fresh samples from the Mulund facility, within three days. A bench headed by Justice SV Gangapurwala fixed the matter for further hearing on November 30. J&J challenged before the High Court two orders of the state government canceling its cosmetic manufacturing license and subsequently directing it to stop the manufacture and sale of baby powder.
According to J&J, the government had violated the principles of ‘natural justice’ and proportionality in passing the two orders. During a surprise inspection in December 2018, the FDA collected samples of J&J’s talc-based baby powder from Pune and Nashik for quality checks. The FDA said the sample from the Mulund unit was “not of standard quality”. Following the FDA’s report, the government revoked the entity’s license in the “public interest” and asked J&J to remove the product from the market.
“The samples will be sent to Central Drug Testing Laboratory, West Zone, FDA laboratory and Intertek laboratory for testing. Thereafter, the labs will have to submit the reports within a week.”
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