SC gives Ramdev, aide one week to apologize publicly
The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday gave Patanjali Ayurved co-founder Baba Ramdev and managing director Acharya Balkrishna a week to tender a public apology in a case concerning misleading advertisements by the company claiming cures for certain ailments and running down allopathy, emphasizing it was not letting them “off the hook” as yet.
The matter will next be heard on 23 April, and the top court asked both Ramdev and Balkrishna to be present.
“We have not decided whether to forgive you or not…You are not so innocent that you did not know what’s happening in court,” the bench of justices Hima Kohli and A. Amanullah said.
The court was hearing a lawsuit filed by the Indian Medical Association, which had urged action against Patanjali for advertisements that promoted the Ayush treatment system while undermining modern, evidence-based medicine.
The court acknowledged Patanjali’s right to promote its
SC acknowledged Patanjali’s right to promote its own products, but criticized its approach to other practices
products, but criticized its approach to other medical practices. “Do your job, don’t ridicule anyone,” the judges remarked.
During the hearing, Ramdev expressed remorse: “I am humbly apologizing to you. We will remember this in the future. It happened on an impulse; we won’t do so in the future.”
Balkrishna said, “Whatever happened was not deliberate but happened out of innocence and unknowingness.”
To this, the bench remarked, “This has been going on since November and December, and your last advertisement came in February.”
In August 2022, the Indian Medical Association had filed a writ petition urging the government, the Advertising Standards Council of India and the Central Consumer Protection Authority of India to address advertisements that promote the Ayush system at the expense of modern medicine, evidencebased medicine.
The plea had highlighted concerns about the systematic spread of misinformation disparaging modern medicine and argued that Patanjali’s unverified claims were in violation of laws.