Baba Ramdev Patanjali: Yoga guru Ramdev’s Patanjali is once again embroiled in controversy. The Delhi High Court on Friday sought a response from the Centre on a petition seeking action against Patanjali’s Divya Dant Manjan being marketed as a vegetarian brand. The petitioner’s counsel claimed that the dental product is being sold with a green dot, which indicates that it is a vegetarian item but this dental product contains fish extract, which is a non-vegetarian product.
Justice Sanjeev Narula issued notice to the Center, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) as well as Patanjali, Divya Pharmacy, yoga guru Ramdev and other concerned parties on the petition of lawyer Yatin Sharma. The petitioner’s lawyer argued that there is no provision in the law to declare any medicine as vegetarian or non-vegetarian, but the green dot is wrongly marked on the packaging of Divya Dant Manjan, which comes as misbranding under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act.
The next hearing of the case will be in November. Advocates Swapnil Chaudhary and Prashant Gupta, appearing for the petitioner, said that the product contains sea foam (Sepia officinalis), which is derived from fish extract. The petitioner claimed that this is disturbing for him and his family, who consume only vegetarian ingredients/products due to religious belief and faith.
Let us tell you that Ramdev has faced a lot of problems in the recent past. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court had reprimanded Ramdev and Acharya Balkrishna for advertising Patanjali products, after which Ramdev and Balkrishna had to appear in court and apologize. The court had commented while directing Patanjali Ayurveda not to publish any advertisements related to the medicines manufactured by it and said that the whole country is being misled through such misleading advertisements. After several months of hearing and reprimand, the Supreme Court has recently closed the contempt proceedings against Yoga Guru Ramdev and Acharya Balkrishna.