The Delhi High Court has ordered Patanjali Ayurved and its promoters, including Baba Ramdev, to take down claims blaming allopathy doctors for COVID-19 deaths while promoting Coronil as a cure.
The court was hearing a defamation case filed by various doctors' associations, including the Resident Doctors' Association of AIIMS, against Patanjali and its promoters.
Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani passed an interim order restraining Ramdev, his associate Acharya Balkrishna and Patanjali Ayurveda from making such allegations, Bar and Bench reported.
"I have directed the defendants to take down certain tweets in three days, if they fail to do it, the social media intermediaries will take down the content," the judge said.
The doctors' associations alleged that Baba Ramdev was causing misrepresentation to the public at large by spreading misinformation, prompting people to not get hospitalised by saying that allopathy was responsible for COVID-19 deaths.
The suit has claimed: “The misinformation campaign as to the alleged ill-effects and lack of efficacy of allopathy during the ongoing pandemic have the propensity to divert people from allopathic treatments prescribed as the standard form of care even by the Government of India, and thereby directly violates the right to health of persons in India/citizens of India, which is a facet of Article 21 of the Constitution.”
The suit alleged that Ramdev and his associates made false claims, including:
Allopathy is responsible for the deaths of lakhs of people due to COVID-19.
Allopathic doctors have been causing deaths of thousands of patients.
Allopathic doctors have been profiteering off patients and advising medicines that have the effect of poison.
Sowing doubts in the minds of the general public as to the safety and efficacy of allopathic treatments and COVID-19 vaccines.
In 2021, the doctors' associations filed a lawsuit against Ramdev, his aide Acharya Balkrishna, and Patanjali Ayurveda. As per the lawsuit, Ramdev had made "unsubstantiated claims" with respect to 'Coronil' being a cure for COVID-19, contrary to the licence granted to the drug for merely being an "immuno-booster".
On October 27, 2021, the high court issued summons to Ramdev and others on the lawsuit, saying that it was not frivolous and a case for its institution was "definitely" made out.
