This is the first part of an investigative series examining pharmaceutical companies linked to the deaths of children from contaminated medicines, and the regulatory failures that allowed them to keep operating. This series is supported by the Thakur Foundation.

Sixteen children are dead. Five more are permanently disabled. The pharmaceutical company behind the cough syrups responsible has since racked up multiple quality failures. Its owners have even been accused of drug diversion and licence misuse. 

But the company is still in operation. 

That company is Digital Vision Pharma, owned by Ambala-based businessman Parshotam Lal Goyal, with his sons Konic and Manic Goyal as directors. It publicly touts an “unflinching dedication to uncompromising quality standards”. Though a closer look points to a very different record.

Despite being linked to the deaths of 14 children in Jammu and Kashmir between December 2019 and January 2020, Digital Vision allegedly continued manufacturing contaminated cough syrup, leading to two more children’s deaths the same year. In November 2025, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in Chandigarh busted a Rs 574 crore drug diversion racket, naming Digital Vision as a key player. The owners are currently absconding.

This Newslaundry-The News Minute (NL-TNM) story shows how Digital Vision Pharma stayed in business through repeated controversies. It is also the story of dozens of families forced to battle the state for meagre compensation, in a case where not a single person from the company has spent a day behind bars.

An analysis of CDSCO and state drug control data shows that Digital Vision Pharma and its group companies – Orison Pharmaceuticals and Vellinton Healthcare – have been flagged at least 35 times over the last 13 years for manufacturing medicines that failed quality standards.

From veterinary medicines to a pharma empire

Parshotam Lal Goyal began his career as a medical retailer in Sangrur before entering pharmaceutical manufacturing in 1984 with Orison Pharmaceutical, a veterinary PCD (Propaganda-cum-Distribution) company in Ambala, Haryana. By the 1990s, Orison had expanded into general human pharmaceutical formulations. Around the same time, Goyal also set up Shiva Medical Hall, a wholesale outlet in Ambala dealing in pharma products including narcotic drugs, operating from the same address as Orison Pharma at 51, Industrial Area, Ambala Cantt.

Over the next three decades, Goyal steadily built a web of pharmaceutical entities: Digital Vision Pharma in 2009; Taxus Meditech – later renamed Vellinton Healthcare – in 2014; Skincare Fiber Pvt Ltd in 2020; and Parb Pharmaceuticals in 2022. His younger brother, Rakesh Goyal, who initially worked with him, branched out in 2008 to start Orison Pharma International.

Alongside this expansion ran a troubling reputation.

35 drug alerts in 13 years

An analysis of CDSCO and state drug control data shows that Digital Vision Pharma and its group companies – Orison Pharmaceuticals and Vellinton Healthcare – have been flagged at least 35 times over the last 13 years for manufacturing medicines that failed quality standards. These alerts were issued by multiple state Food and Drug Administrations and CDSCO laboratories.

Between 2014 and January 2026, drugs manufactured by Digital Vision were flagged as Not of Standard Quality (NSQ) at least 23 times by CDSCO laboratories in Chandigarh, Kolkata, Mumbai, Thiruvananthapuram, Guwahati and Ghaziabad, following samples drawn by drug control departments in states including Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, Telangana, Kerala, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

Its subsidiary Orison Pharmaceuticals was flagged in February 2020; Vellinton Healthcare was found producing NSQ drugs twice in June 2025 by the CDSCO’s Central Drugs Laboratory, Kolkata. 

In January 2025, Vellinton Healthcare was also debarred by the Armed Forces Medical Services until January 2027 after the AFMS concluded that the company had submitted forged and fraudulent documents to secure business dealings with them. 

In 2022, another case was filed against Digital Vision in Karnataka, this time for manufacturing spurious antacid pantoprazole, initiated by then Assistant Drug Controller Shwetha Nagathan of the Vijayapura Circle.

At least 20 of these NSQ alerts were issued after the deaths linked to the cough syrups in 2019–20.

Prosecutions that went nowhere

Regulatory action has occasionally escalated into criminal prosecution, but with little result so far.

In 2015, the office of the Assistant Drug Controller, Dharwad Circle, Hubballi (Karnataka) filed a case against Parshotam Lal Goyal and his sons, Konic and Manic, for manufacturing substandard drugs. Goyal approached the Dharwad bench of the Karnataka High Court to quash the proceedings. The court rejected the petition, noting that “drugs of inferior quality directly affect the common man. Consumption of inferior drugs may prove fatal to one’s life. It is a serious........

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