Patanjali case: Supreme Court urges Centre to publicise complaints against misleading ads of medicines

The Supreme Court on Tuesday suggested that the AYUSH Ministry should create a centralised dashboard to publicise and track the progress of complaints filed against misleading advertisements on medicinal or allied healthcare products. .A Bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Sandeep Mehta made the suggestion after noting that there were several hurdles to monitor the progress of such complaints, particularly when such complaints are forwarded by State licensing authorities from one State to another. 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. "We are of the opinion that the Ministry of AYUSH shall set up a dashboard citing complaints received from stakeholders and also the State licensing authorities so that data is in the public domain. This will also address the issue that prosecution under Drugs and Cosmetics Act is hit by unavailability of complaints etc," the Court said today. .The Court was hearing a case filed by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) against Patanjali Ayurved and its promoters, Baba Ramdev and Acharya Balkrishna, for publishing misleading advertisements targeting allopathic medicine.Over time, the scope of the case was expanded beyond just lapses by Patanjali to larger issues such as misleading advertisements by others, the liability of celebrity influencers who endorse misleading ads, unethical practices in modern medicine etc. Advocate Shadan Farasat was appointed to assist the Court as amicus curiae and collate data submitted by various States and regulatory authorities on such issues. The Court today took note of several issues flagged by the amicus including the following:.Creation of Dashboard to monitor progress in inter-State consumer complaintsThe Court was told that in several States such as Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Delhi and West Bengal, a large number of complaints against misleading claims or advertisements were forwarded to other States as the units manufacturing the consumer product complained of, were not based within that State.The Court noted that there was no data furnished by receiving States with respect to action taken on consumer complaints that are forwarded to them. This leaves the consumer helpless and in the dark, the Court said.Therefore, the Court suggested that a dashboard should be set up by the Ministry of AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sowa Rigpa and Homoeopathy) to furnish details of complaints received from other States and the actions taken on the same "so that data comes into public domain and can be made available to all consumers."The aforesaid dashboard would also aid prosecution under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, which the Court noted often face hurdles due to the absence of action-taken reports on consumer complaints.Prior approval of ads to ensure no misbrandingOnly 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 was told. The Court, therefore, sought responses from States not following this practice. Need for streamlining consumer complaints with respect to healthcare productsThe amicus informed the Court that there is a need to route consumer complaints in a centralised manner. The Court was told that a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) entered between the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs and the Advertising Standard Council of India (ASCI) in 2018 ended in 2020. After this MoU ended, the number of complaints by consumers dwindled from 2,573 to around 132 complaints, which the Court observed was because the Consumer Affairs Ministry's existing mechanism for addressing complaints was not being publicised properly. The Court opined there is a need to examine why the number of consumer complaints has plunged in this manner. Therefore, the Consumer Affairs Ministry was asked to file an affidavit on this aspect in two weeks. The dwindling number of complaints speaks volumes about the poor manner in which the Consumer Affairs Ministry has publicised its grievance redressal portal, the Court added today. This aspect needs to be examined by MCA and specific response furnished to Court in two weeks, the Bench ordered. .The IMA had earlier accused Patanjali of running a smear campaign against modern medicine. The hearings in the matter saw the Court passing several strong strictures against Patanjali.However, the IMA itself later came under fire from the Court when its President made comments that were critical of the Court for asking doctors to put their own house in order and curb unethical practices in modern medicine.In comments made to the press, IMA President Dr. RV Asokan had said that it was "unfortunate" that the Supreme Court criticised the IMA and that doctors were demoralised due to the same.The Bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Ahsanuddin Amanullah had taken strong exception to this statement.During the last hearing, the IMA informed the Court that it has published full-page apologies for these comments..Supreme Court asks Patanjali whether its misleading ads have been taken down from social media platforms.[Read live-coverage of today's Supreme Court hearing]