SC accepts plea for early ruling on tobacco warnings

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, April 6

The Supreme Court today agreed to advance its hearing and ruling on a plea for strict implementation of the laws for display of pictorial warnings to discourage the use of tobacco and its products such as cigarette and “beedi”.

A Bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi said the petition by Health for Millions, an NGO, for curbing the sale of such products that caused painful death in the form of cancer and damage to vital organs would be taken up for the final hearing in July.

Petitioner’s counsel Prashant Bhushan pleaded that the rules were being flagrantly violated by retail shops by selling loose cigarettes which defeated the purpose of the warnings on the packets. In July 2013, the SC had restored the ban on large advertisements at retail shops, promoting the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products by vacating a stay granted by the Bombay High Court in 2005.