Nod to go after misleading Patanjali ads

NEW DELHI:  After taking a U-turn and ignoring RTI petitions, the Ayush ministry has finally given a clear go-ahead to the Uttarakhand government to take action against Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Ayurved for misleading advertisements of his Ayush products.

The directions came following a complaint from Congress MP Karti P Chidambaram. In his letter to Karti, Ayush minister Sarbannanda Sonowal said, “the State Licensing Authority (SLA) has been directed in light of the Drugs and Magical Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954, and rules thereunder.” 

This is not the first time the ministry has directed the SLA to take action against Patanjali. But its February 10 letter clearly said for the first time that Rule 170 has been challenged in the Mumbai court and not action under Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) 1954 a point Kannur-based ophthalmologist Dr K V Babu, an RTI activist, had also flagged in his RTI when he sought action against Patanjali. His RTI petition was rejected on the grounds that the matter was sub judice.

The ministry told SLA this time that the matter should be probed and action taken. Describing it as a “significant development after both the state licensing authority and the Ayush ministry were hiding behind the sub-judice nature of an unrelated rule 170 of the Cosmetic Act,” Dr Babu said, now there is a clear direction to the SLA from the ministry to take appropriate action. “I welcome this decision and communication,” he told this newspaper.

In April 2022, the ministry had given a similar order following an RTI filed by Dr Babu, but the  SLA sought to wriggle out citing Rule 170 under the Drugs and Cosmetic Act, which prevented them from penalising Patanjali.