PCA spokesman Vinod Bhushan Jain, who is also chairman of Roopnagar District Chemists' Association, said the government should free medicines from all types of taxes to help the suffering humanity and not make it a source of income.

Expressing concern over the recent amendments in the sales tax laws that provide stringent punishment, including imprisonment, to evaders, he said that through these amendments, the government had crushed the fundamental right of the citizens as the Sales Tax Act debars the concerned party from going to a court of law without prior permission of the Excise Commissioner.

He warned that such vast powers in the hands of taxation officials would be misused and would demoralise traders, adding that there was a need to reconsider and soften the measures.