SC issues contempt notice to Ramdev's Patanjali Ayurved, Acharya Balkrishna for misleading ads on medicines
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a show cause notice to Patanjali Ayurved and the company’s managing director Acharya Balkrishna for deviating from their promise to not make misleading claims in their product advertisements, media reports said.
The apex court put restrictions on the company co-founded by Yoga guru Baba Ramdev from circulating any advertisement with claims to cure illnesses such as high blood pressure, diabetes, fevers, epilepsy and lupus, which are mentioned in the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954, Moneycontrol reported.
The court slammed the company and criticised the government in strong words.
“The entire country is being taken for a ride" and the government is "sitting with its eyes closed," it said, according to the report.
Pulling up the government for lack of action, the court directed it to submit a sworn statement detailing measures implemented to curb companies' dissemination of inaccurate medication representations through the media.
Patanjali and its staff received a warning against disseminating any misleading claims regarding their product's capacity to treat illnesses.
This directive was issued in response to a writ petition filed by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) over misleading advertisements by certain companies.
In November, Patanjali had promised to refrain from publishing ads that made false claims about its products and disparaged modern medicines and vaccinations.
However, despite this commitment, Patanjali continued to run such advertisements, as reported to the court.
In November 2023, the court warned Patanjali and said, "All false and misleading advertisements by Patanjali Ayurved have to stop immediately. This court will take such infractions very seriously and will consider imposing costs of up to Rs 1 crore on every product for which a false claim is made that it can cure a particular disease."
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