Comply with new warning rules, SC tells tobacco companies

R Sedhuraman

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, May 4 

The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the tobacco industry to comply with the new government rules which mandate that the pictorial and text warnings such as “tobacco kills” cover 85 per cent of the surface area of each packet.

Led by the Tobacco Institute of India, the companies pleaded that the rules could not have specified the extent of area as the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Packing and Labelling) Act merely stated that the warnings should be legible and prominent.

Appearing for the Institute, senior advocate Arvind P Datar also pointed out that the Parliamentary Standing Committee had suggested only 50 per cent of the surface area for the warnings.

The companies had come to the SC after failing to get any interim order from the Delhi, Bombay and other High Courts against the new rules which came into force on April 1, 2016. Only the Dharwad Bench of the Karnataka HC stayed the rules.

An apex court Bench comprising Justices PC Ghose and Amitava Roy stayed the Dharwad Bench order and transferred the petitions pending in various HCs to the Karnataka HC and requested the Chief Justice of that HC to ensure that these were disposed of in eight weeks.

The companies had stopped production for a few days following the notification of the new rules, maintaining that warnings of this size would sound the death knell for the tobacco industry with an annual turnover of over Rs 77,000 crore.