Supreme Court Issues Show Cause Notice To Patanjali Group, Director Acharya Balakrishna, Here's Why

The Supreme Court on Tuesday strongly criticized the Centre for keeping eyes closed on "misleading and false" advertisements by Patanjali Ayurved, co-owned by yoga guru Ramdev. "This is very unfortunate. The government will have to take some immediate action," the Apex Court said. The court directed Patanjali Ayurveda to immediately take down all its electronic and print advertisements containing misleading information about its health products and medicines.

In November last year, the Supreme Court pulled up Patanjali group for similar false claims.

Hearing the case, then CJI NV Ramana had said, "What happened to this Guru Swami Ramdev Baba?... Ultimately we respect him as he popularised yoga. We all go for this. But, he should not criticise the other system. You see the type of advertisements accusing all the doctors as if they are killers or something. Huge advertisements (have been given)."

The Supreme Court bench had asked representatives of the Centre to come up with a solution and plan to tackle the problem of misleading medical advertisements as it impacts millions of lives. Notably, the flag was raised by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) against purported advertisements by the Patanjali group that depicted allopathy and doctors negatively.

For continuously publishing misleading advertisements despite making assurance to the court, the Supreme Court held Patanjali Ayurved of contempt and issued a show cause notice to Patanjali Ayurved and Acharya Balakrishna (Managing Director of Patanjali) asking why legal actions against them should not be initiated.

"The entire country is taken for a ride! You wait for two years when the Acts says this(misleading advertisements) is prohibited," Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah told Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj.

Patanjali advertisements allegedly claim that many medical practitioners themselves are dying despite taking allopathy medicines, the counsel representing IMA had said.