- (1.) Leave granted.
(2.) The respondent's son had problem of growth in his height which was, in medical terms, attributed to disease of pituitary glands. Injection Norditropin was prescribed for treatment. The claim of the respondent for reimbursement of the medical expenses incurred on purchase of the said injection to the tune of Rs. 3,13,200/- was rejected by the appellant-Board. The respondent, thereupon, filed a writ petition seeking a direction for reimbursement of the said amount with interest in the High Court. The writ petition was resisted primarily on the ground that the policy of the Board was not to reimburse expenses on "imported medicines."
(3.) The High Court noticed that the drug in question was not available in India and that the same was an imported drug. The High Court, however, allowed the writ petition observing that the respondent's son had a serious problem and that since the imported drug had been duly prescribed by the doctor at the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Chandigarh the respondent was entitled to be reimbursed for the expenses incurred in purchasing the imported drug. The Bench observed: "In fact, instances are not lacking where people have gone abroad for treatment and the expenses have been paid by the State. Surely, if a particular medicine is not available in India and has to be imported, nobody can help. A poor patient has to import the medicine and take it. This is precisely what appears to have happened in the present case. Still further, no reason whatsoever has been advanced in the written statement to indicate as to why a person is not entitled to reimbursement of expenses incurred by him on account of the import of medicine. It can be imagined that if a drug is available in India and yet a person chooses to import a particular medicine and spends money which is avoidable, the competent authority may take the view that no reimbursement should be allowed or that it should be confined to the expense which the patient would have incurred on getting the drug within the country. However, it is not even suggested in the present case that the drug is available in India. In such a situation, it appears fair to assume that this life saving drug had to be imported. That being so, there would be no reasonable basis for declining to reimburse the expenses." ;