Quacks get off easy, Tamil Nadu needs strict law

CHENNAI: It took a disease outbreak in Tiruvallur and a target number for officials to intensify a crackdown on quacks in the state last year. Officials caught as many as 105 quacks from various districts -but that remains a mere number on paper. All, except one, have been acquitted.
Data available with TOI shows around 145 quacks were caught in the state in 2015, and 105 last year, but officials were unable to furnish sufficient evidence and all of them walked free.Some of the quacks received bail after paying a fine of Rs 1,000 each.
Anandi, 48, a quack caught in Tiruvannamalai was involved in a case of sex-selective abortion last September. She was the only one who spent 45 days in jail.
“And that is because she was charged with committing feticide, a cognisable offence,“ said director of medical services Dr N Senguttuvan.
Police, for want of a stringent anti-quackery law, book some fakes under the Indian Medical Council Act, which does not clearly define punishment, or under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act if they are caught doling out prescriptions. Most of them, however, are booked only for cheating and impersonation.
Officials say unless a death is directly linked to treatment by a fake practitioner a case is hard to prove. “Many witnesses, who are often pa tients that these quacks have treated, turn hostile,“ said Senguttuvan.
Though quacks are caught during routine field inspections, director of public health K Kolandaswamy said the number increases in the wake of an outbreak.
The Tamil Nadu chapter of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) estimates that there are 30,000 quacks in the state, most of them in rural areas. Police arrested more than 200 people, but officials admit that almost all of them have been let off the hook, with many resuming practice in different districts.
After the death of a 22-year-old medical student in Chennai following hair transplant surgery, the government issued an order to set up committees at the state and district levels, comprising officials from the directorate of medical education, public health, medical services and the drug control department to charge quacks under more stringent sections of the IPC, including attempt to murder.
“But even if we have proof, it is hard to penalise culprits if witnesses turn hostile,“ Senguttuvan said.
The health department is still in the process of amending a legislation to ensure that the guilty serve a jail term of not less than seven years with or without a fine.