"How Can You Call Other Chyawanprash Brands 'Dhokha'?" Court To Patanjali

Yoga guru Ramdev's Patanjali Ayurved was asked by the Delhi High Court on Thursday how it could refer to all other chyawanprash brands as 'dhokha' (fraud or deception) while touting its own as good. 

Hearing a plea by Dabur India seeking an interim injunction against Patanjali running an advertisement to that effect, Justice Tejas Karia remarked that while Patanjali can claim to be the best, it cannot say that others are a fraud. 

"You are saying everyone is 'dhokha', and I am genuine. How can you call all other chyawanprash 'dhokha'? You can say inferior, but you can't call them a fraud... Is there no other word available in the dictionary which can be used, other than 'dhokha'?" the judge asked.  

 "'Dhokha' is a negative word, derogatory. You are saying they (the companies) are fraud and people are eating something fraudulent," he added.

Dabur has also accused Patanjali of making false claims that its chyawanprash contains "51 Ayurvedic herbs and saffron", despite a 2014 government advisory deeming the claim misleading.

It has contended that the use of "special" as a prefix for a classical ayurvedic medicine violates Rule 157(1-B) of the Drugs Rules, which prohibits deceptive labelling of ayurvedic formulations.

Senior Advocate Sandeep Sethi, arguing for Dabur, stated that chyawanprash is a class of goods, and by referring to all other chyawanprash as 'dhokha', Patanjali was disparaging all of them. 

"To call somebody 'dhokha' is disparaging. They may say 'I don't identify you', but they paint everybody with the same brush... Coming from a self-proclaimed yoga guru, it is far more serious because people associate a yoga guru with some sense of truthfulness," Sethi said. 

He added that Dabur is preparing its chyawanprash as per the statute and if a product does that, it cannot be called a 'dhokha'. 

"It is all being done to create panic. I have a 100-year-old company. I have a 61% share. There have been 9 crore views (of the advertisement) in a matter of five days. This is how sensitive people are," he said. 

Appearing for Patanjali, Senior Advocate Rajiv Nayar said the Patanjali advertisement is puffery and hyperbole, which is permissible under the law. 

"We have to see the entire meaning that the advertisement is conveying. Right or wrong, it is hyperbole. I am not saying all others are ineffective. I am trying to convey that 'forget about other chyawanprash, consume only mine'. I am allowed to say that I am the best. I am saying all others are inferior in comparison to mine," he said, adding that Dabur was being hypersensitive.

The high court reserved its verdict.