By Dr Swati Jindal Garg
The controversy ensued when in an interview with PTI Indian Medical Association (IMA) President Dr RV Asokan had answered queries about Patanjali Ayurved Ltd’s misleading advertisement case, stating that it was “unfortunate” that the Supreme Court had criticized the IMA as well as some of the practices of private doctors. The query was about the Court’s observations passed during a hearing wherein it had said that while “it was pointing one finger at Patanjali, the remaining four fingers were pointed towards IMA”. These remarks were made by Asokan just a day prior to the hearing of the Patanjali case wherein an application was submitted by Patanjali Ayurved Ltd asking the Court to acknowledge the statements made by him.
The Court took exception to the remarks made by Asokan and said: “You cannot sit on a couch giving an interview to the press lampooning the court” and made it clear that it could not accept Asokan’s affidavit tendering an apology at that stage. It was at this stage that Asokan had got his apology published on the website and by the PTI.
The Court further stated that the apology ought to have been published in all the newspapers that carried Asokan’s interview containing his controversial remarks regarding the hearing on misleading advertisements in the supreme Court.
The incident unfolded while the apex court was hearing a plea filed in 2022 by the IMA alleging a smear campaign launched by Patanjali against the anti-Covid-19 vaccination drive and the modern systems of medicine. While the IMA’s counsel had stated before the Court that Asokan’s unconditional apology had already been published in the association’s monthly publication, on the IMA’s website as well as by the news agency PTI, a bench of justices Hima Kohli and Sandeep Mehta of the Supreme Court told him that the apology should have been published in all those newspapers that carried Asokan’s interview. The Court asked: “Was it published in all those newspapers where your interview was published?” The IMA’s counsel, on the other hand, tried to pacify the Court by stating that the IMA president had expressed regret and furnished an unconditional apology for his statements. The counsel further apprised the Court that Asokan never had any intention to lower the majesty or the dignity of the Supreme Court.
This is not the first time when the Supreme Court has asked someone to tender an apology for remarks made by the person. Time and again, it has been said that “apology is a magical word”. In order to be accepted, a true apology must meet five conditions:
(i) Firstly, there should be a wrongdoing, a mistake, an error or something morally wrong, for an apology to be initiated.
(ii) Secondly, there should be an acknowledgement, an honest admission, of the wrongdoing.
(iii) Thirdly, there should be a willingness to accept full responsibility for the damage or the consequences of the wrongdoing.
(iv) Fourthly, there should be genuine remorse accompanied by an expression of regret over what happened.
(v) And finally, there must be a commitment not to repeat the mistake.
Apology is, therefore, not just a word to be furnished at one’s convenience or even a legal trick to absolve oneself from all responsibility; it should be, in fact, a deep ethical act of introspection, self-reflection, atonement and self-reform. In the absence of all of the above, an apology is nothing, but a farce and duplicity, if not worse.
The apex court had earlier, while hearing a petition filed by the IMA against advertisements issued by Patanjali—a company co-founded by self-styled yoga guru Baba Ramdev—attacking Allopathy, refused to accept the first apology of Ramdev and Managing Director Balkrishna, calling it a “mere lip service”. The Court had further questioned the Union government for not acting against the company’s misleading claims during a public health crisis.
The duo’s second apology was also rejected in a contempt case linked to the company publishing misleading advertisements during the Covid-19 pandemic, stating that the two were apologising only because they were caught out. “Having regard to entire history, we have expressed our reservations about accepting the latest affidavit filed. We have also pointed out that even after show cause notices, the proposed contemnors attempted to wriggle out of physical appearance. This is most unacceptable,” Justice Hima Kohli had said in Court.
Ramdev and Balkrishna were facing contempt action from the Supreme Court for publishing objectionable and misleading advertisements about their Ayurvedic products. They had even violated an undertaking given to the Court to stop these advertisements.
“Patanjali says their advertisements were to keep people connected with Ayurvedic medicines, as if they are the first ones in the world to come up with Ayurvedic medicines,” the judge had further stated.
Accusing Ramdev and Balkrishna of sending their affidavit to the media before the Court, the apex court had also observed: “Till the matter hit the Court, the contemnors did not find it fit to send us the affidavits. They sent it to the media first.”
In a separate case, the Delhi High Court in 2022 had told Ramdev not to “mislead” people against Allopathy and not to make any claims beyond what authorities had stated about Patanjali’s product Coronil. The Court also took exception to Patanjali advertising it as a “cure” for Covid-19.
The Supreme Court had also in the past taken suo moto cognizance of a petition against Senior Advocate Prashant Bhushan and Twitter India requesting it to initiate contempt proceedings for a tweet published about the then chief justice of India SA Bobde accompanied by a picture of him on a motorcycle, alleging that it “inspired a feeling of no-confidence” in the independence of the judiciary and amounted to “scandalizing the court”.
Initiating contempt proceedings against both Bhushan and Twitter India for unspecified tweets published by the former on the latter’s platform, the bench took the prima facie view that the statements brought the administration of justice into disrepute and were capable of undermining the authority of the institutions of the Court—particularly the chief justice—in the eyes of the public.
It had then issued a brief order seeking Bhushan to apologise unconditionally pursuant to which Bhushan had filed a supplementary statement, where he noted: “If I retract a statement before this court that I otherwise believe to be true or offer an insincere apology, that in my eyes would amount to the contempt of my conscience and of an institution that I hold in highest esteem.” A week later, the Court had fined Bhushan one rupee.
Another case that had garnered media attention was the one pertaining to Rahul Gandhi for his “chowkidar chor hai” remark in the Rafale deal case against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Rahul had made the remarks on the day the Supreme Court had dismissed the centre’s preliminary objections over admissibility of certain documents for supporting the review petitions against the verdict in the case. While commenting on the Court’s decision, Rahul—then Congress president— ended up attributing the remark to the Court in order to target Modi over the Rafale deal. Rahul had later tendered an unconditional apology to the Supreme Court for wrongly attributing the remarks relating to the prime minister to the apex court. His counsel had told the bench, that the Congress leader had expressed regret over the wrongful attribution to the apex court and tendered an unconditional apology in the Court for wrongfully attributing the remark and had even said that he holds the top court in the “highest esteem and respect” and any attributions to it were “entirely unintentional, non-wilful and inadvertent”. The three-page affidavit was filed by Rahul after he had drawn flak from the top court over his earlier affidavit in which he had not directly admitted his mistake for incorrectly attributing the allegedly contemptuous remark to the top court.
All these instances show quite clearly that an apology is not just a mere lip service and the apex court of the country leaves no stone unturned in order to ensure that any apology that is tendered to it is heartfelt and comes from regret as well as the promise that the contumacious conduct shall not be repeated. There is no denying that insincere and fake apologies are morally useless and socially ineffective. Far from repairing fractured relationships, they only cause further damage.
Thus, a true apology emanates from within, in the process of a sincere dialogue, without any coercion or manipulation.
—The author is an Advocate-on-Record practising in the Supreme Court, Delhi High Court and all district courts and tribunals in Delhi