Fresh Supreme Court directive to govt in misleading advertisements case

The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Ministry of Ayush to set up a dashboard for monitoring the status and also track the progress of consumer complaints against misleading advertisements on medical and allied healthcare products.

The direction for having a dashboard came after a Bench of justices Hima Kohli and Sandeep Mehta noted that there were several hurdles to monitor the progress of such complaints, particularly when such complaints were forwarded by state licensing authorities from one state to another due to the location of manufacturing units.

This also poses hurdles for prosecutions under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 1940 as there is no data readily available on action taken reports when it comes to such complaints, it said.


The Bench noted that it appeared that a large number of complaints were forwarded from some states like Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Delhi, and West Bengal to other states, but “there is no data given by receiving states on action taken.”

“This leaves consumers feeling helpless and in the dark regarding action taken on the complaints. The Ministry of Ayush must set up a dashboard for all states to furnish details,” it said.

Amicus curiae Shadan Farasat stressed the need to have a more centralised setup to route consumer complaints on misleading advertisements. He told the Bench that a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the consumer affairs ministry and the Advertising Standard Council of India had ended in 2020, therefore, the number of complaints by consumers dwindled from 2,573 to 132.

The court then felt that the issue needs to be examined as to why the number of consumer complaints had plunged in this manner. Therefore, it asked the Ministry of Consumer Affairs to file an affidavit on this aspect in two weeks.

The top court was informed that only a few states follow the practice of giving prior approval of advertisement before a licence is issued to ensure that there is proper labelling and no misbranding of various products. The court then sought responses from states for not following the practice.

Further, the top court asked the Uttarakhand government to take a decision on the suspension of licences of 14 ayurvedic products by Patanjali and Divya Pharmacy in two weeks. The direction came after it was informed that sale of these 14 ayurvedic products was continuing as the suspension order had been cancelled by the Uttarakhand government on July 1 and a fresh decision on the same was pending with the state government.

The SC was also hearing a contempt case against Patanjali Ayurved's Co-founder Baba Ramdev and Managing Director Acharya Balkrishna for publishing misleading advertisements and violating the SC's order. In February, the apex court had come down sharply on Patanjali for its misleading advertisements on the medicinal efficacy of its products and barred it from advertising or branding its products that claimed to treat ailments specified in the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954.