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Informist, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025

 

--On Dabur plea, HC bars Patanjali Ayurved from airing advt on chyawanprash 

--CONTEXT: Dabur moved HC against Patanjali Ayurved's new chyawanprash advt 

--CONTEXT: Patanjali had termed other chyawanprash pdts as fraud in advt 

 

NEW DELHI – Hearing Dabur India Ltd.'s plea, the Delhi High Court has restrained Patanjali Ayurved Ltd., the parent company of Patanjali Foods Ltd., from airing advertisement in which it had called chyawanprash products of other companies as fraud, till the next date of hearing on Feb. 26. Patanjali Ayurved shall take down advertisement from all electronic media, including national television channels, over the top platforms or any form of streaming system, and all other digital and print media, said the court.

 

If Patanjali Ayurved is disparaging a whole class of products, its act will adversely affect its competitors, said the high court. Although Patanjali Ayurved in the advertisement has not particularly targeted Dabur India's product, the defendant has referred to every other chyawanprash other than its product as 'dhoka' or fraud and the petitioner being the market leader for the product was likely to be adversely affected by the disparaging nature of the advertisement, said the high court.

 

The court said that to convey a message through the advertisement that only Patanjali Ayurved's product was genuine and everyone else's product was deceptive was incorrect and disparaged the entire class of chyawanprash in general. Anybody who manufactures an Ayurvedic product by following the statute and the scriptures as enlisted in the statute, cannot be denigrated as deceptive, when the statute considers it to be a good and permissible ayurvedic drug, said the court. Therefore, Patanjali Ayurved cannot deride Dabur India or other manufacturers, who manufacture chyawanprash strictly as per the enlisted ayurvedic scriptures, said the court.

 

For an average viewer of the advertisement featuring Patanjali Ayurved Ltd.'s Co-founder Baba Ramdev, a well-known authority on yoga and Vedic practices, and his assertion that only the defendant's product was genuine chyawanprash was likely to create a strong impression, said the court. Such a statement would naturally lead viewers to accept it as true and disregard other brands of chyawanprash, said the court. Consequently, both in its tone and underlying intent, the advertisement seeks to disparage the entire category of chyawanprash products, the court added.

 

The advertisement, which aired last month, had 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 dhoka (fraud)?" the court questioned. 

 

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. 

 

At 1021 IST, shares of Patanjali Foods were down 0.2% at INR 578.90 on the National Stock Exchange and those of Dabur India were down 0.3% at INR 514.  

 

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

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Deepshikha Bhardwaj

 

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