New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Monday ordered Baba Ramdev and Acharya Balkrishna to retract their statements asserting that allopathy was responsible for the deaths of lakhs of people during the COVID-19 pandemic and that Patanjali‘s Coronil is a “cure” for the virus.
Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani said he was “allowing” a plea moved by several doctors’ associations against Ramdev.
“There are directions for taking down of some of the offending posts and content. There are directions to the defendant to take down those set of tweets in three days,” the judge said.
If the direction is not complied with, microblogging platform X (earlier Twitter) will take down the content, the court added.
The plea forms a part of a 2021 lawsuit by the doctors’ associations against the Ramdev, his associate Acharya Balkrishna as well as Patanjali Ayurveda.
Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani had reserved the order on the issue on May 21 after hearing the parties.
The lawsuit alleges that Ramdev made “unsubstantiated claims” regarding ‘Coronil’ being a cure for COVID-19, despite the drug only being licensed as an “immuno-booster.” Senior counsel representing the doctors requested the court to prevent Ramdev and others from making similar statements in the future.
The case was brought by three Resident Doctors’ Associations from AIIMS Rishikesh, Patna, and Bhubaneswar, as well as the Association of Resident Doctors from the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education & Research in Chandigarh, the Union of Resident Doctors of Punjab (URDP), the Resident Doctors’ Association from Lala Lajpat Rai Memorial Medical College in Meerut, and the Telangana Junior Doctors’ Association in Hyderabad. They filed the lawsuit in 2021, alleging that Ramdev was running a misinformation campaign and using it as a marketing strategy to boost sales of products, including ‘Coronil,’ which claimed to be an alternative treatment for COVID-19.
On October 27, 2021, the high court issued summons to Ramdev and others, stating that the lawsuit was not frivolous and that there was a definite case for its institution.
With inputs from PTI
