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SC drops contempt of court charges against Patanjali, Baba Ramdev, Balkrishna
In February, the SC imposed a ban on Patanjali Ayurved's misleading ads and issued contempt of court notices to Ramdev and Balkrishna.
Baba Ramdev and Acharya Balkrishna approached the court to quash the proceedings against them where one of their argument was based on the violation of the limitation period, stated a Bar and Bench report.
The Supreme Court of India shut the contempt proceedings against Patanjali Ayurved and its co-founders Baba Ramdev and Acharya Balkrishna against misleading ads case on August 13.
The bench of Justice Hima Kohli and Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah closed the contempt of court proceedings while accepting the apology tendered by the parties after they took steps to rectify their mistake.
However, they warned that the apex court could reopen the proceedings if the parties do anything in future in violation of court orders.
Senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi and Vipin Sanghi along with Simranjeet Singh and Gautam Talukdar, AOR, Athena Legal, appeared for Patanjali, Balkrishna and Ramdev in this case.
It is to be noted that both Ramdev and Balakrishna have repeatedly apologised in the top court and have published apologies in multiple newspapers across the country.
The contempt proceedings began after a petition was filed by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) against Patanjali's misleading ads that attacked allopathy and made claims about curing certain diseases, last year.
On November 21, 2023, the SC reprimanded the company, in response of which Patanjali had assured that it would refrain from such ads. "The entire country was being taken for a ride through such misleading advertisements," the court had then remarked.
However, a day later Ramdev made statements including "remedies for blood pressure were lies spread by allopathy”. Later, in December, another unlisted firm by Balkrishna issued a similar advertisement.
In February, noting how the misleading ads continued, the apex court issued contempt notices and later sought the personal appearance of Balkrishna and Ramdev after the reply to the contempt notice was not filed.
In April, both of them appeared in the court and had issued 'unconditional apology'. The court, however, expressed dissatisfaction with the language and its size of the apology issued in the newspaper, after which Patanjali published another apology.
On August 13, the top court noted that "efforts have been made by them to take steps to make amends."
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