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Informist, Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025

 

--Dabur moves HC against Patanjali Ayurved's new advt on chyawanprash 

--HC quizzes Patanjali for calling other chyawanprash pdts as fraud in advt 

 

NEW DELHI – The Delhi High Court Thursday questioned Patanjali Ayurved Ltd., the parent company of Patanjali Foods Ltd., for calling chyawanprash products of other companies as fraud in an advertisement. The court was hearing a plea by Dabur India Ltd., which alleged that Patanjali Ayurved had disparaged the petitioner's chyawanprash product by labelling all other such products as "fraud". The petitioner sought the court's intervention to restrain Patanjali Ayurved from airing this particular advertisement.

 

The advertisement, which aired last month, had Patanjali Ayurved Ltd.'s Co-founder Baba Ramdev saying most people were falling victim to fraud while buying chyawanprash. If one wants the real power of Ayurveda, he said in the advertisement, one should eat only Patanjali Special Chyawanprash. Defending this advertisement, Patanjali Ayurved's counsel said that Ramdev meant that his company's product was the best and all others were ordinary and inferior.

 

The high court said the word 'fraud' does not mean the same as 'ordinary' or 'inferior'. "Use the word inferior, what is the problem? Inferior you can say, but you cannot call them fraud. Inferior and fraud are different things. Is there no other word available in the dictionary other than dhokha (fraud)?" the court said. It added that Patanjali Ayurved has no basis to call other products 'fraud'. While companies are permitted to call its rival's products 'ordinary', however, calling them 'fraud' does not amount to disparagement, the court said. It reserved its order on Dabur's plea seeking an interim injunction against Patanjali Ayurved on the chyawanprash advertisement. 

 

Earlier this year, Dabur India had filed a similar plea against Patanjali Ayurved on Chyawanprash products. Dabur India had highlighted Patanjali Ayurved's commercial which said that those who lack knowledge of Ayurved and Vedic traditions cannot produce the "original" chyawanprash. Dabur India had said the statement implied only Patanjali Ayurved's product was authentic, while other brands were inferior or fake. 

 

In July, a single-judge had directed Patanjali Ayurved to delete parts of an advertisement that disparaged Dabur's chyawanprash. In September, a division bench allowed Patanjali Ayurved to use "why settle for ordinary chyawanprash?" in its advertisement. However, it asked Patanjali to remove the reference to a phrase which said the ordinary chyawanprash by rivals was "made with 40 herbs", as the latter was directly targeting Dabur India's 40-herb formulation. The court said that comparative puffery was permitted in advertising.  

 

At 1336 IST, shares of Patanjali Foods were down 0.9% at INR 570.50 on the National Stock Exchange, while those of Dabur India were up 1.0% at INR 522.05.  

 

IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Tanima Banerjee

 

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