By Shankar Raj*
Thiruvananthapuram: After being hauled up by the Supreme Court, yoga guru and co-founder of Patanjali Ayurved Ltd, Baba Ramdev and his associate Acharya Balkrishna have been asked to appear before a court in Kozhikode on June 3, 2024. This will be the first of the 29 cases filed across Kerala against Baba Ramdev and his associates.
The Kozhikode judicial first class magistrate court-IV issued the orders to the two and also included Divya Pharmacy, a sister concern of Patanjali Ayurved, to appear before the court in connection with a petition filed by the Kerala drugs control department.
The petition alleged that the trio had placed misleading advertisements about products offering medical cures for various diseases.
It was Kannur-based ophthalmologist Dr K V Babu who pleaded for action against Divya Pharmacy on September 30, 2023, citing misleading advertisements placed in newspapers in violation of the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act. He asked the state drugs control department to initiate action against Divya Pharmacy.
Following the complaint, the department conducted a detailed probe and 29 cases were filed, including four in Kozhikode. Now, the court has taken up the first case for hearing.
Simultaneously, Dr Babu had also filed complaints with the Prime Minister’s office, which was forwarded to the Ayush ministry and then to the Uttarakhand Licensing Authority. Following this, the Uttarakhand state govt through the Ayurvedic Yunani Adhikar filed a complaint with the Haridwar chief judicial magistrate court which has asked Ramdev, Acharya Balkrishna and Divya Pharmacy and Patanjali Ayurved Ltd to appear before the court on June 7.
In the Kozhikode case, the court has issued the direction on the complaint filed by the drugs inspector under sections 3 (b) and 3 (d) of the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act.
Last month, Baba Ramdev and Acharya Balkrishna personally tendered their apology to the Supreme Court after it pulled them up in a case for holding a press conference and publishing advertisements in violation of court orders.
“I am willing to give a public apology to show contrition and to tell the public that it is not that I am doing only some lip service in court…,” Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for them, told a bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Ahsanuddin Amanullah.
However, the bench raised queries on whether the two should not have refrained from disparaging other systems of medicine and announcing their claims by parading patients on the stage instead of approaching the interdisciplinary medical committee.\ To this, Ramdev said, “Aap theek keh rahe hai ki karodon log mujhse judey hain aur aage se mein is tathya ke prati 100 per cent jagrook rahunga. Aur is tarah ki kisi bhi paristhithi ka mujhe bhi saamna karna pade, yeh mere liye bhi shochaneey hai… Humne anusandhan ke jo kaary ke utsah mein aisa hogaya. Aage se nahi karenge (You are right that there are crores of people connected with me and from now I will be 100 per cent alert to this fact. I too am not happy that such things happen. It happened on impulse. Will not do in future).”
*Shankar Raj is a former editor of The New Indian Express, Karnataka and Kerala, and writes regularly on current affairs.
