SC rebukes Patanjali over allopathy remarks, threatens heavy fine
PTC News Desk: The Supreme Court reprimanded yoga guru Baba Ramdev and his commercial entity Patanjali Ayurved Limited on Tuesday for disparaging modern medicine and discrediting its proponents, while also asking the Centre to develop a comprehensive mechanism to prevent misleading advertisements.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court directed the Centre to develop a comprehensive mechanism to prevent misleading advertisements that make unverified claims about curing all diseases.
A bench led by Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah stated, “This is blatant infraction of law what you (Patanjali) are doing. We will take it very seriously if you keep doing this and even impose cost to the extent of Rs 1 crore on every product.”
The Court was hearing a petition filed by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) seeking an order prohibiting all misleading advertisements claiming to cure all ailments and thus discrediting doctors by questioning the efficacy of allopathic medicines. The petition named Patanjali Ayurved as one of the respondents, citing an advertisement published in leading newspapers in July last year alleging that the health benefits claimed by allopathy are "nowhere to be seen" and those who rely on it are suffering from "hellish pangs" of negative health effects.
The Court stated that it does not intend to debate whether allopathy or ayurveda is superior, and instead asked the Centre to develop a "comprehensive solution" to deal with all types of misleading claims.
“We want to find a real solution to the problem of misleading advertisements making false claims that it can cure a particular disease,” said the bench.
The top court further posted the matter to February 5 and asked additional solicitor general (ASG) KM Nataraj to deal with the issue in a holistic manner where citizens are not misled by these false claims.
- With inputs from agencies
