The Delhi High Court on Monday directed Patanjali Ayurved and its promoters, including Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev and Acharya Balkrishna, to remove the statements claiming that allopathy was responsible for the death of lakhs of people during the Covid-19 pandemic, while promoting Patanjali’s Coronil as a cure for the virus.
The single-judge Bench of Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani passed the interim order on a defamation suit filed by various doctors’ associations in 2021.
The High Court recorded in its order that it was granting the defendants three days to take down certain tweets. If they failed to comply with the order, the social media intermediaries would take down the content.
A defamation case had been filed against Patanjali and its promotors by the Resident Doctors’ Association of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Rishikesh, Patna and Bhubaneswar, along with the Association of Resident Doctors, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education & Research, Chandigarh, the Union of Resident Doctors of Punjab (URDP), Resident Doctors’ Association, Lala Lajpat Rai Memorial Medical College, Meerut and the Telangana Junior Doctors’ Association, Hyderabad.
As per the suit, Ramdev and his associates made certain false claims against allopathy during Covid-19 pandemic, which should be taken down. The Patanjali founder had claimed that Allopathy was responsible for the deaths of lakhs of people due to Covid-19.
It was further alleged in the suit that Ramdev claimed that Allopathic doctors have been causing the deaths of thousands of patients. Allopathic doctors have been profiteering off the patients and advising medicines to patients that have the effect of poison, added the petition.
The doctors argued that through such misleading claims, Patanjali was sowing doubts in the minds of the general public as to the safety and efficacy of allopathic treatments, and also of Covid-19 vaccines.
The doctors alleged that the misinformation campaign as to the alleged ill-effects and lack of efficacy of allopathy during the ongoing pandemic had the propensity to divert people from allopathic treatments prescribed as the standard form of care even by the Government of India, and thereby directly violated the right to health of persons in India/citizens of India, which is a facet of Article 21 of the Constitution.