The Supreme Court on Tuesday “turned the beam” on allopathic doctors prescribing expensive and unnecessary medicines, apart from FMCGs carrying out misleading advertisements.

The court pulled up the Union government for waiving rules that restrained authorities from taking action against misleading campaigns for ayurvedic, siddha and unani medicines.

“We can’t let the public be taken for a ride. There are children, babies and women whose health is involved. You (the Indian Medical Association) have to tell us what you have done as an in-house exercise to prevent abuse. They are your members. You have to have effective control over the members (allopathic doctors),” the apex court said, posting the matter for further hearing to May 7.

A bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Ahsanuddin Amanullah also expanded the scope of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) petition against alleged misleading advertisements by yoga practitioner Ramdev and the Patanjali group by impleading the Union ministries of consumer affairs, information and broadcasting, the drug controllers and licensing authorities of states/UTs, besides the National Medical Commission (NMC) to rein in allopathic doctors and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs).

“While the petitioner (IMA) is pointing fingers at the respondents (Ramdev and Patanjali), the other four fingers are also pointing at you (IMA) because members of your association have been busy endorsing expensive and unnecessary medicines to their patients.

“It is not just FMCGs, there is you (IMA) and your members who are prescribing medicines on the strength of recommendations made for which there is a valuable consideration. If that’s happening, why shouldn’t we turn the beam at you?” Justice Kohli, who headed the bench, asked senior advocate P.S. Patwalia, who appeared for the IMA.

The bench observed: “The petitioner also needs to put its house in order. There are several complaints about alleged unethical acts of the members of the petitioner association who prescribe medicines to patients in the line of treatment. We feel wherever there is misuse of their position in recommending highly expensive medicines or extraneous medicines for valuable consideration, we have to examine them.”

The court also did not spare Ramdev and Patanjali after senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the company, told the bench that they have put out ads in 67 publications tendering an unconditional apology for persisting with the misleading ads despite the apex court’s November 2023 order restraining them from doing so.

“Is your apology of the same size as the advertisements you normally issue in newspapers? Didn’t it cost you tens of lakhs to put front-page advertisements?” Justice Kohli asked, responding to Rohatgi’s argument that they have spent “tens of lakhs of rupees” for issuing the apologies in the publications.

“We want to see the newspaper advertisements (apologies) in the original, and in which page were they published and other details. We want to see,” the bench said.