India / It's for govt to act if Patanjali breaks rule, why are you carrying torch: HC to DMA

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has issued summons to yoga guru Ramdev after the Delhi Medical Association (DMA) filed a suit seeking to restrain him from disseminating false information about allopathy and claiming that Patanjali’s Coronil kit can cure COVID-19. The Delhi High Court verbally asked Ramdev’s counsel to tell him not to make any provocative statement till the next hearing on July 13.

The DMA had sought token damage of Re 1 over his statement and an unconditional apology. However, the high court asked them to file a petition instead of the lawsuit. The court also remarked that the DMA should be spending its time on finding a cure for the pandemic instead of wasting the court’s time. However, the medical body objected to the comments. It claimed that Ramdev’s remarks are affecting the members of the institution. It said that Ramdev is calling allopathy fake and falsely representing Coronil as a cure for Covid.

To this, the court said that if tomorrow it feels homoeopathy is fake, that would be an opinion and a suit cannot be filed against it. The court said that even if it assumed that what Ramdev is saying is wrong or misleading, a suit under public interest can’t be filed like this.

The court remarked that it’s a PIL masquerading as a suit and said that if Patanjali is violating rules, it’s for the government to take action against them. “Why are you carrying the torch….You better file a PIL saying that he called it a cure and then changed it to immunity booster, and in the meantime, millions bought it,” the court said.

The court said that Ramdev’s comment on allopathy may be right or wrong but this court can’t say Coronil is a cure or not. “It has to be done by medical experts. Though his words like ‘stupid science’ may be temperate but that can’t be a cause for a suit,” the High Court underlined.

Responding to the DMA’s plea for interim relief, the High Court said that it’s issuing a notice but can’t give a restraint order at this stage.

Ramdev was seen claiming in a video that lakhs of people have died because of allopathic medicines, far more than those who died because they did not get treatment or oxygen. He, however, later clarified that he was reading a WhatsApp forward and offered an apology.