SC retains ruling on tobacco product pictorial warning

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New Delhi: Tobacco products would continue to carry pictorial warning covering 85 per cent of the packaging space, the Supreme Court said Tuesday.
The apex court, January 8, had stayed the Karnataka High Court order quashing the 2014 government regulation that packets of tobacco products must carry pictorial warning covering 85 per cent of the packaging space.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice A M Khanwilkar today made “absolute” its earlier interim order by which it had stayed the High Court order.
“Keeping in view the objects and reasons of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003 and the measures taken by the state, we think it appropriate to direct stay of operation of the judgement and order passed by the High Court of Karnataka,” it had said.
The court has now posted all the pleas including the one filed by Cancer Patients Aid Association, NGO ‘Health for Millions Trust’ and Umesh Narain challenging the High Court order for final hearing.
Earlier, the bench had said that it was unimpressed with the submissions of the Tobacco Institute of India (TII) that the interim stay would harm the fundamental right to do business of tobacco manufacturers.
Attorney General K K Venugopal, appearing for the Centre, had said that the high court judgement needed to be stayed and 85 per cent pictorial warning on packaging space of tobacco products be allowed to remain as a large section of the population is not educated.
The high court, December 15 last, had struck down the 2014 amendment rules that mandated pictorial health warnings to cover 85 per cent of packaging space of tobacco products, holding that they were unconstitutional as they violated fundamental rights like the right to equality and the right to trade.