Baba Ramdev, the Founder of Patanjali Ayurved, and Acharya Balkrishna, the Managing Director, personally appeared before the Supreme Court on Tuesday, expressing their readiness to issue a public apology over misleading advertisements by Patanjali.
The Supreme Court personally interacted with with Ramdev and Balkrishna today to understand if they were genuinely sorry for running “misleading” ads that had disparaged modern medicine, according to reports.
While they expressed that they were sorry for their conduct, the Bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Ahsanuddin Amanullah indicated they weren’t completely clear of trouble yet.
Reports quoted Justice Kohli saying, “We are not saying we will forgive you. We cannot be blind to your earlier history, we will think about your apology. You are not so innocent that you were completely unaware of what was going on in Court…At this moment, we are not saying they are off the hook.”
The Court adjourned the matter until April 23, after recording an undertaking from Patanjali and its representatives that they intend to voluntarily take certain steps to redeem themselves and demonstrate their good intentions, reports stated.
The Court’s order stated, “The proposed contemnors will take some steps on their own initiative and unilaterally. (Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi) requests one week time to come back with the same. The Court also interacted with the proposed contemnors at the request of Respondents 5-6. List on April 23, top of the list. Make sure both the proposed contemnors are present on the next date.”
This development follows the court’s rejection of a previous apology from Patanjali, where the court criticised their attempts to evade personal appearance by falsely claiming overseas travel.
Before that, on April 2, the Court refused to accept the first apology affidavit from Patanjali MD, noting it unqualified.
