Kerala Court issues bailable warrant against Baba Ramdev for Patanjali's misleading ads

A Kerala court has issued bailable warrants against Patanjali Ayurved co-founders Baba Ramdev and Acharya Balkrishna in connection with the publication of allegedly misleading ads by the company..The Judicial First Class Magistrate II at Palakkad issued the warrant on January 16 after they failed to appear before the Court despite its order directing their personal appearance .The case against them includes allegations that advertisements published by Divya Pharmacy, an affiliate of Patanjali Ayurved, violated the provisions the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954..Multiple criminal cases across Kerala accuse Divya Pharmacy of publishing advertisements that disparage modern medicine, including allopathy, and making unsubstantiated claims of curing diseases. One such case is pending before the the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court at Kozhikode..Over the past two years, Patanjali and its founders have been in the spotlight due to their advertisements. The issue had caught the attention of the Supreme Court when the Indian Medical Association (IMA) had filed a plea against Patanjali Ayurved over its ads. The apex court had imposed a temporary ban on advertisements of the Patanjali's medicines and issued contempt of court notice to its founders for making misleading claims.The Court had said that Patanjali has been taking the country for a ride by falsely claiming that its medicines cure certain diseases despite there being no empirical evidence for the same.After Ramdev and Balkrishna appeared before it and apologised, the apex court had ordered it to publish apologies in newspapers.During the case, the Court had also pulled up the Central government for not invoking the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules of 1945 against Patanjali.In August 2024, the Supreme Court closed the contempt of court case.