Court fines Patanjali Ayurved Rs11 lakh for misbranding

A fine of Rs11 lakh has been imposed on Yoga guru Ramdev's company Patanjali Ayurved Ltd by a court in Haridwar, Uttarakhand, 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 eyeing doubling its revenues from the current Rs5,000 crore to almost Rs10,000 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".

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 the 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 16 August 2012, allegedly failed quality tests .

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 1 December, but became public a day ago.