SC drops contempt of court charges against Patanjali

The Supreme Court has dropped the contempt of court charges against Patanjali Ayurved and its founders Baba Ramdev and Acharya Balkrishna, Bar and Bench reported.

Ramdev and Acharya had earlier been pulled up in court for the company's misleading advertisements against evidence-based medicine. They had been found to be in breach of their statement that they would not telecast or publish such misleading ads.

The Ayurved company and its founders had sought pardon from the top court for the breach. Ramdev had also apologised for his November 2023 press conference wherein he had spoken about the case after the court had passed strictures against Patanjali Ayurved. They had also published apologies in newspapers.

The bench of Justice Hima Kohli and Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah on Tuesday pronounced the judgment and closed the contempt of court proceedings.

During the trial, the court had considered several aspects, from the Uttarakhand government’s inaction against errant licensing officers to other firms issuing misleading ads, and unethical practices in modern medicine.

Newslaundry earlier reported that there is plenty of blame to go around for Patanjali’s misleading ads fiasco. Read here.