New Delhi, May 5 -- Drugmakers failing random quality checks could potentially be deemed guilty until proven innocent under a fresh crackdown by the government on substandard, spurious and adulterated medicines.

The Centre plans to suspend the product permission licence issued to a drugmaker for a particular medicine if even a single batch of that medicine is found to be substandard by any government testing laboratory, said two officials, requesting anonymity.

In effect, a drugmaker will not be allowed to continue manufacturing a particular medicine after just withdrawing a failed batch, as is the current practice.

India's Drugs Rules, 1945 has no provision on actions to be taken if a batch of medicines fails a quality test, apart fro...