In a lawsuit filed by doctors accusing Ramdev of spreading false information about allopathy to sell his Coronil, the HC has issued a summons to him

The Delhi High Court issued summons to Ramdev on Wednesday in response to a lawsuit filed by several doctors’ associations accusing him of spreading false information about allopathy during the COVID-19 pandemic, stating that the complaint was not frivolous and that a case for its institution had been made out ‘definitely.’

Ramdev was given four weeks to respond to the lawsuit by Justice C Hari Shankar.

The judge noted that he was “not expressing any view” on the merits of the accusations in the plaint against the Yoga Guru and that any interim or permanent remedy would be considered later.

“I’ve watched the video clips” (of Ramdev). Your customer seemed to despise the allopathic treatment approach based on the video footage. He has sneered at people who are prescribed steroids and who go to hospitals. The clips show that there is undoubtedly a case for the litigation to be instituted. “They (plaintiffs) may have no basis for an injunction, but this is not a frivolous case,” the court informed Ramdev’s senior counsel, Rajiv Nayar.

While the senior counsel indicated he had no issues to the summons being issued, he disagreed with the claims made in the case. “The lawsuit is divided into three parts: Coronil, slander, and vaccination reluctance. “The court could limit notice to simply slander,” Nayar said.

“I’m not giving you any orders.” You submit your written statement to the court. “Say there isn’t a case,” the judge said.

“Permission to file the lawsuit is granted. Allow the plaint to be filed as a lawsuit. The court ordered that summons be issued in the case and set the next hearing for January.

The summons was also issued to Acharya Balkrishna and Patanjali Ayurveda, and they must respond to the suit.

The social media platforms Google, Facebook, and Twitter were also served with notice by the court.

Three resident doctors’ associations from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Rishikesh, Patna, and Bhubaneshwar, as well as the Association of Resident Doctors, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education & Research, Chandigarh; the Union of Resident Doctors of Punjab (URDP); the Resident Doctors’ Association, Lala Lajpat Rai Memorial Medical College, Meerut, and the Telangana Junior Doctors’ Association, Hyderabad, had filed a petition with the court.

They claimed Ramdev was deceiving and misrepresenting the public by implying that allopathy was to blame for the deaths of multiple people afflicted with COVID-19, and that allopathic doctors were to blame for the patients’ deaths.

The organisations’ senior counsel, Akhil Sibal, alleged that during a pandemic, the Yog Gugu made false promises about Coronil being a treatment for COVID-19, in violation of the drug’s licence, which only allowed it to be used as a “Immuno-booster.”

The organisations said in their petition, filed through counsel Harshavardhan Kotla, that the yoga guru, who is a powerful figure, was seeding concerns in the public’s minds about the safety and efficacy of not only allopathic medicines but also COVID-19 vaccines.

The misleading effort, according to the plea, was nothing more than an advertisement and marketing tactic to promote Ramdev’s products, including Coronil, which purports to be a COVID-19 alternative treatment.

The court had indicated earlier this week that the physicians’ plea deserved to be considered and could not be “thrown out” at this stage because it wanted to “examine if claims in the plaint make out a case to be heard.”

On June 3, the court issued summons to Ramdev in connection with his purported statements against allopathic drugs and claims regarding Patanjali’s Coronil kit, in response to a separate petition filed by the Delhi Medical Association.