K’taka HC order on hold, tobacco warning to stay
We are inclined to think that health of a citizen has primacy and he or she should be aware of that which can affect or deteriorate the condition of health... In all possibility expression “destruction of health” is apposite
SUPREME COURT BENCH
NEWDELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday stayed the Karnataka high court order quashing the government regulation that packets of tobacco products must carry pictorial warning covering 85% of packaging space.
A bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra put on hold the order while brushing aside concerns raised by the tobacco product manufacturers that the direction would affect their business. A request was also made to the court to fix the size of the pictorial warning at 50%, which the court declined.
“We are inclined to think that health of a citizen has primacy and he or she should be aware of that which can affect or deteriorate the condition of health. We may hasten to add that deterioration may be a milder word and, therefore, in all possibility the expression “destruction of health” is apposite,” the bench said, while fixing March 18 for hearing the appeals against the HC verdict.
Attorney general KK Venugopal supported the petitioners and opposed the manufacturers’ plea, saying the rules were made considering the health hazards on citizens on the basis of expert opinion.
He contended that life sans health is not worth living and the chewing of tobacco or smoking of cigarettes or bidis caused irretrievable hazard to health.
“It’s the obligation of the state to make the people aware as regards the injurious nature of these indulgences,” he said.
Venugopal submitted that one may start with smoking or chewing tobacco as an adventure but gradually it becomes a habit and gets converted to addiction, which becomes the killing factor or causation of pain, suffering, agony, anguish and ultimately death.
“It’s the family that suffers and the whole society faces peril,” he said.
With the Centre failing to provide any empirical evidence on ill-effects of consumption of tobacco products, the HC had ruled that textual warnings need not be printed on cigarette packets and on other tobacco products.
The Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling) Amendment Rules, 2014, made it mandatory for tobacco manufacturers, sellers and advertisers to have textual warning and images showing the effects of cigarettes on the throat on the packets.
The Karnataka high court, on December 15, last year had struck down the 2014 amendment rules that mandated pictorial health warnings to cover 85 per cent of packaging space of tobacco products, holding that they were unconstitutional as they violated fundamental rights like the right to equality and the right to trade.
The high court had, however, made it clear that the 40% pictorial health warning rule, which existed prior to the amendment rules, would remain in force.
In May last year, the SC had transferred all petitions against the 85% rule filed in various high courts to the Karnataka high court and asked it to hear and dispose them of.