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CBI books Johnson & Johnson for 'cheating'

The Central Bureau of Investigation has registered a case against two Mumbai-based firms, including multinational Johnson and Johnson Ltd, for allegedly causing Rs 500 million losses to the government besides cheating consumers by overpricing drugs.

J&J was found to be allegedly availing of exemption from price approval provided to small scale drug units by "fraudulently" floating a small scale unit, N R Jet Enterprises, and showing that such drugs and medicines were not manufactured by it, a CBI release in New Delhi said.

During the investigations, the agency found that Jet Enterprises was controlled by the employees of J&J and some of the products being manufactured by it were earlier produced by the multinational, the release said.

The CBI alleges that one such medicine Raricap was earlier marketed by Johnson at a retail price of Rs 16.24 per 40 tablets as fixed by the government under the provisions of the Drug Price Control Order 1995. However, the said product is being now manufactured by Jet Enterprises and is being sold at a retail cost of Rs 55.

In a follow-up action, searches were conducted at four places, in Mumbai, in the office premises of senior executives of the multinational and Jet Enterprises which allegedly yielded several incriminating documents, it said.

Johnson and Johnson officials were not immediately available for comments.

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