The Supreme Court on Wednesday warned that it would initiate the Contempt of Courts Act if states failed to take action against manufacturers of drugs who make misleading claims in public advertisements promising cure for diseases in violation of the Drugs and Cosmetics Rule.

“We make it clear that we will initiate contempt proceedings for every instance of non-compliance of our earlier directives against the concerned states and Union Territories,” a bench of Justices A.S. Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan, observed while directing all states/UTs to file compliance reports relating to the enforcement of the Act.

The bench passed the directive after taking on record a report submitted by amicus curiae and advocate Shadan Farasa who submitted that there was laxity by several states/UTs in complying with the provisions of the Act. Many of the respondent states/UTs, he said, had claimed inability to enforce the Act citing difficulty in identifying the offenders.

The court on Wednesday, however, said it would not brook any such defiance by the authorities and sought compliance with its directives by March 17, by which all the respondent states/UTs have to file compliance reports. It passed the order while dealing with a petition filed by the Indian Medical Association alleging misleading claims by the Patanjali group with whom yoga practitioner Ramdev is associated.

Patanjali had tendered an apology and said it would not repeat the mistake. On Wednesday, the court relieved IMA president R.V. Ashokan of contempt proceedings after he apologised for certain remarks.

Election query

The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought a response from the Centre and the Election Commission on Congress leader Jairam Ramesh’s writ petition challenging as arbitrary, illegal and unconstitutional the recent amendments to the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, which allegedly precluded disclosure of information relating to elections to voters.