New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday (February 27) issued a contempt notice to yoga guru Ramdev’s company Patanjali Ayurved and its managing director Acharya Balakrishna, for continuing to run misleading advertisements that claimed to permanently cure several diseases.
Saying that the entire country has been “taken for a ride”, the top court banned Patanjali from running medical advertisements temporarily.
The apex court also rapped the Union government for “sitting with its eyes shut” and not taking any action on the advertisements.
It was hearing a case filed by the Indian Medical Association last year against Patanjali regarding its advertisements against modern medicine, including India’s COVID-19 vaccination drive. In November last year, the top court had already warned the company and said that they should not run “false advertisements” and Patanjali had assured it would comply.
Meanwhile, a day after the hearing [on Wednesday morning], Patanjali Food’s share price dropped by around 4%, Livemint reported.
‘No ads of medical products’: SC to Patanjali
When the Supreme Court first heard the petition by the IMA last year, it ordered Patanjali to cease all its “false and misleading” advertisements. The top court even said that any violation would result in an imposition of up to Rs 1 crore on every product for which a false claim is made regarding its ability to cure a disease.
Patanjali had then assured the Supreme Court that it would not make statements against any system of medicine, or make any statements regarding the medical efficacy of Patanjali products.
However, it continued to run such advertisements.
The top court, hence, issued contempt of court notices against Patanjali Ayurved.
It has also banned the company from running advertisements of products claiming to cure such diseases, LiveLaw reported.
‘Govt sitting with its eyes closed’
The Supreme Court said that the ‘entire country was being taken for a ride’ by such misleading advertisements. As earlier mentioned, the apex court also came down heavily on the Union government for lack of action on the misleading advertisements.
“The government is sitting with its eyes closed. This is very unfortunate. The government will have to take some immediate action,” NDTV quoted the court as saying.
The matter will be next heard on March 15, the Times of India reported.
Share price of Patanjali Foods drops
The share prices of Patanjali Foods, an FMCG company, fell by around 4% on Wednesday morning, as the Supreme Court issued a contempt notice to Patanjali Ayurved and its managing director Acharya Balakrishna.
However, the company claimed that its business operations and financial performance would not be impacted by the court’s observations.
“The observations of the Supreme Court of India do not relate to Patanjali Foods Ltd (PFL), which is an independent listed entity and operates in the space of edible oil and food FMCG products only. The observations do not have any bearing on the regular business operations or the financial performance of Patanjali Foods,” LiveMint quoted the company as saying.
Incidentally, Patanjali Ayurved holds a 32% stake in Patanjali Foods, per one report.
