Baba Ramdev and Acharya Balakrishna were excused from appearing in person by the Supreme Court, at the May 14 hearing of Patanjali Ayurved's lawsuit involving misleading advertisements.
To submit an affidavit detailing the actions taken to recall advertisements for medications for which the company's licence was withdrawn, Ramdev and Balakrishna requested time from the SC. The SC gave them a three-week window.
Furthermore, the Court postponed making a decision in the contempt proceedings. It requested Ramdev to use his influence for good.
The Supreme Court requested on April 30 that Patanjali Ayurved submit the original newspaper page containing the unqualified public apology for disobeying the court's directions. Notification has been sent to the Registry to record it after it is filed.
Patanjali's attorneys were questioned by a bench of justices Hima Kohli and Ahsanuddin Amanullah for failing to present the court with authentic copies of the apology. The Supreme Court had already ordered them to submit the apology's original paperwork, which the court claimed had not been completed.
Patanjali Ayurved informed the court that due to the sheer volume of apologies issued across 322 newspapers, filing the original pages would have been cumbersome.
The SC also said that there has been an improvement in the attitude of Patanjali’s management. “There has been a marked improvement. There was only Patanjali earlier, now there are names. We appreciate that. They have understood,” said the SC.
