It will be life imprisonment and a penalty of Rs 10 lakh for those found guilty of sale and production of spurious drugs in the country. Not only this, this offence has been made non-bailable and will be heard only at the special designated court which will be set up by Centre in collaboration with state governments and the judiciary. At present such an offence is liable to five years of imprisonment and Rs 10,000 penalty. The Centre gave its approval on Thursday to move official amendments to the Drugs and Cosmetics Amendment Bill, 2005 which is pending in Rajya Sabha. The bill has also proposed stricter punishments for spurious ayurvedic, unani and siddha medicines, where imprisonment of five years and penalty of Rs 10,000 have been proposed. Also, for misbranding on these products, the punishment will be one year imprisonment and Rs 20,000 fine. The bill proposes imprisonment for a term for not less than 10 years which may be extended to life term and fine of not less than Rs 10 lakhs or three times value of the drugs confiscated, whichever is more, for a person involved in manufacture and sale of spurious drugs. The central government had constituted an expert committee under the chairmanship of former director general, CSIR, R.A. Mashelkar in 2003 to undertake a comprehensive examination of the problem of spurious drugs. The committee recommended for the enhancement of penalties, setting up of special courts for speedy trials and making the offences relating to spurious drugs non-bailable. Based on these recommendations, a bill was introduced in Lok Sabha on December 2003 which lapsed due to the dissolution of Lok Sabha. It was again introduced in Rajya Sabha in 2005 and would help contain the problem of manufacture and trade of spurious drugs.