ISLAMABAD: The Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) has ruled that registration as a medical practitioner does not exempt doctors from obtaining licences for commercial drug sales, setting aside a Peshawar High Court judgment that had halted regulatory proceedings against doctors allegedly maintaining dispensaries or medical stores within their clinics.
The ruling draws a distinction between dispensing medicines to a doctor’s own patients as part of treatment and operating a retail drug business. It also sets limits on High Court intervention where administrative proceedings remain at the show-cause stage and disputed facts have yet to be examined by the relevant authorities.
A two-member bench comprising Chief Justice Aminuddin Khan and Justice Ali Baqar Najafi allowed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s appeal against a June 5, 2023 judgment of the Peshawar High Court, Dera Ismail Khan Bench. Chief Justice Aminuddin Khan authored the judgment in proceedings heard on September 23, 2026.
The case involved some registered medical practitioners who were allegedly stocking and selling pharmaceutical drugs without the required drug-sale licences. Following an inspection on January 21, 2020, officials took the medicines into custody through Form-6 and issued show-cause notices. The doctors challenged the action before the High Court, which allowed their petition.
The FCC identified three central questions: the authority of the drug inspector, whether medical registration provided an exemption from drug-sale licensing, and whether the High Court could intervene before the statutory authorities had considered the doctors’ responses.
Addressing the licensing issue, the court held that Section 31(4)(a) of the Pharmacy Act, 1967 protects registered doctors from being treated as unlawfully practising pharmacy when dispensing medicines to their own patients or against their own prescriptions. However, the protection does not confer a general right to conduct an independent drug business.
The Drugs Act, 1976 operates in a separate regulatory field governing the storage, distribution and sale of pharmaceutical products. Section 23(1)(c) prohibits any person from selling drugs except under a licence and subject to its conditions. The court held that professional registration cannot be used to bypass this requirement.
The bench further explained that medical and pharmacy registrations serve different legal purposes and that medical credentials alone do not fulfil prescribed requirements relating to pharmacy supervision.
The court observed that determining whether a clinic merely dispenses medicines incidentally to treatment or operates as a sales outlet requires examination of evidence. Relevant factors may include the quantity of medicines stocked, procurement and supply arrangements, sales records, recipients, payments, invoices and prescriptions. Such questions, it held, should first be investigated by the designated statutory authorities.
The bench also upheld the statutory basis for drug inspections and seizures, subject to applicable procedural and authorisation requirements. It found that no case had been established before the High Court showing that the inspector lacked appointment, territorial competence or the requisite authorisation.
On judicial intervention, the court noted that the doctors had approached the High Court without first responding to the show-cause notices. Such notices ordinarily provide an opportunity to answer allegations before an adverse decision and do not themselves constitute a final determination.
The court held that intervention at that stage requires exceptional circumstances, such as an authority plainly lacking jurisdiction or an incurable legal violation apparent from the record. It found that no such circumstance had been demonstrated in the case.
The judgment emphasised the specialised enforcement process involving the Provincial Quality Control Board and, where prosecution follows, the Drug Court. It also held that Article 18’s protection of professional and trade freedom permits lawful licensing requirements connected with public welfare.
Setting aside the high court judgment, the FCC restored the statutory proceedings but expressly declined to prejudge the doctors’ guilt. The doctors may submit replies and supporting records to demonstrate that their dispensing activities were permissible. The relevant authorities must independently determine the allegations under the applicable laws and must not treat the FCC’s observations concerning disputed facts as findings of culpability.
