The Delhi High Court on Tuesday directed Patanjali Ayurved to remove certain portions of its ad allegedly disparaging Dabur's chyawanprash.
A bench of Justices Hari Shankar and Om Prakash Shukla allowed Patanjali to use “why settle for ordinary Chyawanprash”, but directed it to remove the subsequent part, “made with 40 herbs".
The bench's order came on an appeal filed by Patanjali against a single judge's order of the high court, restraining it from running "disparaging" advertisements against Dabur Chyawanprash.
The single judge in July allowed the interim applications filed by Dabur India Limited against Patanjali and directed it to delete the first two lines of an advertisement, i.e., "Why settle for ordinary Chyawanprash made with 40 herbs?" It also directed Patanjali to delete from the TV commercial the line: "Jinko Ayurved aur Vedo ka gyaan nahi, Charak, Sushrut, Dhanvantri aur Chyawanrishi ki parampara ke anuroop, original Chyawanprash kaise bana payenge?" The counsel for Patanjali on Tuesday informed the bench that the company will remove reference to "made with 40 herbs" and urged it to allow advertisement to the extent it says "ordinary chyawanprash".
The counsel said Patanjali was not seeking permission to advertise the second part of the advertisement barred by the single judge.
The bench said if the reference to 40 herbs was removed, what remained was "only a statement saying ‘why settle for ordinary Chyawanprash?' At the highest, that is puffery.” “We are dealing with Chyawanprash, not a prescription drug. If someone says ordinary for a cancer drug it maybe a serious matter. But Chyawanprash is used by many people... To say 'I am best and others are not as good as me' is permissible because it is puffery. We don't really think that because of the word ordinary people will stop taking Dabur Chyawanprash,” the bench said.
Justice Mini Pushkarna had directed Patanjali to delete the line "Toh ordinary chyawanprash kyu?" The bench said Patanjali should be allowed to run the print and TV ads after the modifications.
In its petition, Patanjali has claimed before the court that its commercial made no reference to Dabur.
The judge noted in the July 3 order that the TV commercial was narrated by Ramdev, an acknowledged yoga and vedic expert, who appeared in person in the advertisement.
The petition filed by Dabur before the single judge bench had alleged "Patanjali Special Chyawanprash" was "disparaging Dabur Chyawanprash specifically" and chyawanprash in general, by claiming that "no other manufacturer has the knowledge to prepare chyawanprash" -- constituting generic disparagement.
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