HARIDWAR: A fine of Rs 11 lakh has been imposed on Yoga guru
Ramdev's company, Patanjali Ayurved Ltd, by a city court on charges of misbranding and misrepresentation of its products.
In its order, the court of Lalit Narain Mishra, Haridwar's additional district magistrate, found the company, which is currently eyeing at doubling its revenues from the current Rs 5,000 crore to almost Rs 10,000 crore by the next financial year, guilty of "releasing
misleading advertisements by selling certain products with its labels although they were being manufactured by some other firm."
Expand
Citing Section 52 (misbranding) and Section 53 (misleading advertisement) of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 as well as Section 23.1 (5) of Food Safety and Standard (Packaging and Labelling Regulations, 2011) Act, it ordered Patanjali to pay the fine within a month. It also directed the district food safety department to "take appropriate action if there is no improvement in the products in future."
A case against the company was filed at the ADM's court in November 2012 after samples of products, including honey, salt, mustard oil, jam and besan (gram flour) picked up for sampling on August 16, 2012, allegedly
failed quality tests .
Expand
The tests were conducted at Uttarakhand's only FSSAI-certified drugs and food testing lab located at Rudrapur. The case had been ongoing ever since. The order regarding the fine imposed on the company was given by the court on December 1, but became public a day ago.
Read this story in Marathi