Jain bodies move Bombay High Court seeking ban on advertisement of non-vegetarian food/ products

A public interest litigation (PIL) petition has been filed before the Bombay High Court seeking restrictions/ ban on the advertisements of meat and meat products in print and electronic media. .The petitioners, who are three Jain religious charitable trusts and a Mumbai resident practising Jainism, claimed that their families including their children are forced to watch such advertisements.This infringes on their right to live peacefully and "tamper" with the minds of the children, the petitioners contended.The petition has sought reliefs from the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, the State, the Press Council of India, the Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection Department and the Advertisement Standards Council of India.Apart from these, the petitioners have also arraigned companies Licious, Freshtohome Foods and Meatigo as respondents.They have sought directions to the concerned authorities to frame and issue guidelines to restrict and ban advertisement of non-vegetarian foods across media..The petitioners claimed that the advertisements are not only disturbing and causing harassment to the people who believe in being vegetarian, but also infringe on their fundamental right of privacy. In this regard, the plea cited Article 51A (g) of the Constitution which bats for compassion towards living creatures as one of the fundamental duties. However, advertisements of meat products are promoting and expressing cruelty towards the living creatures, the petition said. "It is the fundamental right of everyone in this country to live with human dignity free from exploitation, however, the impugned advertisements exploit the mind of children and youngsters by provoking, promoting and intimidating to consume non-vegetarian foods," the plea highlighted. There is already ban on advertising alcohol and cigarettes by government and similar to alcohol and cigarette, non-vegetarian foods are not healthy, causes damage to environment and instigates youngsters to consume them, the petitioners contended. The plea clarified that they are not opposed to the sale or consumption of such food and their plea is only against advertisement of such items. .The petition is likely to be heard by Bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta in this week.