India, Oct. 19 -- The Madhya Pradesh Government has provoked fury and disbelief by quietly reinstating a deputy controller of the State's Drug Administration, Shobhit Koshta, just four days after he was suspended in connection with the Chhindwara cough syrup disaster that claimed the lives of 24 children.

The reinStatement order, signed by Additional Chief Secretary (Health and Medical Education), returns the very official accused of oversight failures to his post at the Food and Drug Administration headquarters in Bhopal - an action many see as a brazen act of protection for an official alleged to have presided over regulatory dereliction that cost young lives.

The chilling facts of the Chhindwara case are straightforward: a cough syru...