New Delhi: In a relief to Yoga guru Baba Ramdev, the Supreme Court on Tuesday closed the contempt proceedings pending against his brainchild, Patanjali Limited, over the publication of misleading medical advertisements in breach of a court undertaking. The verdict has also brought relief to Patanjali’s Mangaing Director, Acharya Balkrishna.
The court, however, warned the duo against violating court’s future orders. The order was passed by a bench of Justice Hima Kohli and Justice Sandeep Mehta. The court accepted the apology of Ramdev and Balakrishna.
“However, we expressly and strictly warn them that they will not do any thing in violation of the court orders like it has happened earlier in this case. We have come down heavily and we warn that this should not be done in future,” the order stated, as quoted by LiveLaw.
What was the case?
The matter came to the forefront during the Covid pandemic. Patanjali had launched a drug, Coronil, in 2021. Ramdev had described it as the “first evidence-based medicine for COVID-19”, claiming that Coronil had WHO certification. Dubbing it as ‘blatant lie’, Indian Medical Association (IMA) sent a legal notice to Ramdev and sought his apology.
Further, a video had also reportedly surfaced which shows Ramdev saying that allopathy was a ‘stupid and bankrupt science.’ But, Patanjali Yogpeeth had claimed that Ramdev was reading out a WhatsApp forwarded message.
In 2022, IMA moved a petition against Patanjali after it published an advertisement in newspapers titled ‘Misconceptions Spread By Allopathy: Save Yourself And The Country From The Misconceptions Spread By Pharma And Medical Industry’.
The advertisements, according to reports, had claimed that Patanjali drugs had completely cured people of diabetes, high blood pressure, thyroid, liver cirrhosis, arthritis, among other diseases.
What happened subsequently?
Last year in November, the apex court had warned Patanjali against such claims, threatening to impose heavy penalties.
Patanjali’s counsel, according to the court documents, stated that “henceforth, there shall not be any violation of any of the laws….’. But, this year in January, the court had reportedly got an anonymous letter that mentioned misleading advertisements of Patanjali were still being published.
The court then sought a reply from Patanjali and asked why contempt proceedings should not be started against it. In March, the apex court was told that Patanjali had not filed the reply to the contempt notice. Thus, the court asked Ramdev and Balkrishna to appear in person.
Supreme Court had rejected Ramdev’s appologies
In April, the court came down heavily on Ramdev and Balkrishna for their ‘absolute defiance’. They had not filed proper affidavits over the misleading advertisements, by then. The court had also rejected their apologies as those were sent to the media first.
The court asked if the size of apology published in newspapers was similar to its full-page ‘misleading’ advertisements of its products. Finally, Patanjali put out larger apologies in all prominent newspapers of the country.
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