Delhi High Court injuncts Patanjali ad which denigrates other chyawanprash brands as 'dhoka'

The Delhi High Court has passed an interim order restraining Baba Ramdev's Patanjali Ayurved from streaming its new advertisement, which allegedly termed all other chyawanprash brands "dhoka" (fraud or deception) [Dabur India Limited v Patanjali Ayurved Limited & Anr].

Justice Tejas Karia ordered social media companies, Over The Top (OTT) platforms and broadcasters to block the advertisement within three days.

"The Defendants shall take down / block / disable the Impugned Advertisement from from all electronic medium including national television channels, over the top platforms or any form of streaming system, and all other digital mediums including and print mediums and platforms on the World Wide Web / Internet, Newspapers, all of their social media accounts," the Court directed.

The Court passed the order aftrer Dabur India sued Patanjali for disparagement and unfair competition over a recent television commercial of Patanjali Special Chyawanprash.

According to Dabur's plea, the ad featured Baba Ramdev warning consumers that “most people are being duped in the name of chyawanprash.” It termed other chaywanprash brands “Dhoka” (fraud or deception) and promoted Patanjali’s product as the only “original” Chyawanprash offering the “true power of Ayurveda.”

Dabur alleged that the commercial deliberately maligns its own flagship product, Dabur Chyawanprash, which has dominated the market since 1949 with over 61% market share.

It was contended that such messaging by Patanjali amounted to “generic disparagement” of the entire Chyawanprash category thereby, eroding consumer faith in Ayurveda-based health supplements.

After considering the arguments, the Court ruled that the advertisement seeks to disparage the entire category of chyawanprash products.

"Therefore, for an average viewer of the Impugned Advertisement featuring Mr. Baba Ramdev, a well-known authority on yoga and Vedic practices, and his assertion that only the Defendants’ Product is genuine Chyawanprash is likely to create a strong impression. Such a statement would naturally lead viewers to accept it as true and disregard other brands of Chyawanprash. In evaluating the overall impact of the Impugned Advertisement, it is necessary to consider factors such as the stature and influence of the endorser. Consequently, both in its tone and underlying intent, the Impugned Advertisement seeks to disparage the entire category of Chyawanprash products," the Court said.

It added that even though Patanjali's advertisement does not particularly target Dabur's product, it refers to every other chyawanprash as ‘dhoka’, and Dabur, being the market leader, would be adversely affected by it.

Therefore, the Court concluded that a prima facie case was made out for the grant of an injunction.

"A false advertisement campaign would cause irreparable loss to the Plaintiff while stopping broadcast of an advertisement referring to the Plaintiff’s Product or the products of other competitors as ‘deceptive’ may not have any material effect on the Defendants, considering that it is free to advertise its product without reference to the competitor's products as deceptive."

Thus, the Court passed the injunction order against Patanjali.

Senior Advocate Sandeep Sethi with advocates R Jawahar Lal, Anirudh Bakhru, Meghna Kumar and Krisna Gambhir appeared for Dabur.

Senior Advocates Rajiv Nayar and Jayant Mehta along with advocates Rahul Sahay, Rishabh Pant, Neha Gupta, Abhijeet Kr Pandey, Osheen Verna and Pratham Arora represented Patanjali.

[Read Order]