Patanjali-Dabur legal wrangle: Delhi HC orders Baba Ramdev's company to modify chyawanprash ad targeting rival

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday ordered Patanjali Ayurved to remove certain portions of its ad allegedly disparaging Dabur's chyawanprash.

The bench's decision came after Patanjali filed an appeal against an earlier High Court order which restricted the company from running any advertisements that directly or indirectly targeted Dabur chyawanprash.

In its petition, Patanjali claimed before the court that its commercial made no reference to Dabur, PTI reported.

High court verdict

A bench of Justices Hari Shankar and Om Prakash Shukla ruled that Patanjali can use the phrase “why settle for ordinary chyawanprash”, but must remove the subsequent part, “made with 40 herbs".

The bench said if the reference to 40 herbs was removed, the remaining statement saying "why settle for ordinary chyawanprash?" is at most ‘puffery,’ which is a permissible form of advertising where a company exagerrates the quality of its own product.

The judges stated that they don't believe the use of word “ordinary” to describe Dabur in Patanjali's ad would stop consumers from buying the former brand's product. “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.

Initial ban on Ad

This ruling was a modification of a prior order by a single judge in July. The judge had directed Patanjali to delete the first two lines from its advertisement after a petition was filed by Dabur India Limited. The two lines were:

• “Why settle for ordinary chyawanprash made with 40 herbs?”
• “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," PTI reported.

Petition filed by Dabur

The petition filed by Dabur before the single judge bench had alleged that the reference of "Patanjali Special Chyawanprash" was "disparaging Dabur Chyawanprash specifically" by claiming that no other manufacturer has the knowledge to prepare chyawanprash.

Dabur argued that this practice constituted “generic disparagement” of not just Dabur's product but all chyawanprash-making brands in general.

Patanjali's Chyawanprash TV commercial was narrated by Baba Ramdev, an acknowledged yoga and vedic expert, who appeared in person in the advertisement. After the recent court ruling, Patanjali will be allowed to run the print and TV ads only after fulfilling the modifications, the news report by PTI noted.

Patanjali Foods Ltd, the parent company of Patanjali Ayurved, was jointly founded by Baba Ramdev and his close aide Acharya Balkrishna.