Rajasthan High Court Ruling on Expiry Dates; Bihar CHC Expired Drugs Found
Rajasthan High Court ruled an expiry date is an opinion, not proof of decomposition. Expired life-saving medicines worth lakhs found at Patahi CHC in Bihar, indicating potential negligence.
Food Safety Officers and Drug Inspectors across Indian markets commonly seize and incinerate expired food and pharmaceutical stock, but the High Court of Rajasthan has delivered a landmark judgment questioning whether a stamped expiry date proves a product is unusable. In Dueful Laboratory & Anr. v. State of Rajasthan, the court held that a manufacturer's stamped expiry date is “an opinion about the future” and “not an automatic proof of physical decomposition.”
In a separate incident on 21 February 2026, large quantities of expired life-saving medicines worth lakhs of rupees were found stored in a doctor's quarter at the Community Health Center (CHC) Patahi, located in Patahi, Motihari (East Champaran), Bihar. The discovery has raised concerns about potential negligence within Bihar's health department.